


they don't deserve you

by orphan_account



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coming of Age, Domestic, Fluff, High School, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, M/M, Mentions of Death, OT8, Opposites Attract, Parent Death, Side Seongsang, Side Yungi, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Teenagers, Textfic, Texting, Trigger Warnings, Unfortunate Implications, Woosan, no beta we die like men, platonic jongjoong, teenage angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:14:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 77,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22444666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “why are you frowning? why did you cry?”“uh, i...i don’t know.” san shakes his head, and looks at his jeans, running a hand over the hole in his knee and feeling the threading and the fabric that he came to hate in a short span of time. “i don’t know.”...or, san learns to fall in love with the world he’s come to hate, while wooyoung was made of roses and moons and fit right in with the way the stars flickered beautifully on empty nights.
Relationships: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung
Comments: 68
Kudos: 186





	1. hot chocolate and how the rain feels

**Author's Note:**

> hello!
> 
> so i listened to one of those reverbed slowed versions of a billie eilish song and thought wow,,,, this is sad
> 
> so i made an au! i hope this first chapter isn't too boring, i tried to focus more on feelings and how the world looks to both san and woo, since i want to have both of them be complete opposites of each other and i love those character tropes times a million. i really don't know where i'm gonna go with this fic??? it was supposed to be a one shot but i have like 80 thousand chapters i wanna write so we're just gonna see where it goes!
> 
> TW// depression , suicide
> 
> i feel like i need to say this? there are some parts in here that revolve around a death and sometimes has heavy implications of it. i understand how this might be triggering for some. i have zero intent on romanticizing anything at all, so if this comes off as such please let me know! keep yourself safe and only read if you are comfortable!! there isn't anything graphic described in this fic, but there are mentions of past violence and a couple mentions of blood, so i put the graphic violence warning just in case! i did some research on romanticizing certain issues like that and tried my very best to avoid it.
> 
> pls remember that in this au san does not have depression and he is not suicidal, he just likes to be alone and think with the world sometimes, while dealing with his last year of high school alone. 
> 
> END OF TW!
> 
> i'm still learning how things work when it comes to writing topics and everything like that, and i could be tripping ab nothing right now but just pls pls pls let me know if this comes off as such and i will literally take it down and rewrite it w no issues.
> 
> however, if you're still reading, i hope you like it! their ages are switched and everyone is around 18 years old. ik ur probably like mandi wtf stop changing their ages but idk i like writing characters to be around my age as selfish as that sounds it helps with connections but aNYWAYS—
> 
> enjoy!
> 
> p.s. here's the song if you wanna listen to it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7X8xXLxcX4

_hello!_

_really quick - this story is completely fictional and meant for entertainment purposes only!_

_everything is entirely made up, and the real-life people that the characters are named after have nothing to do with how they really are. i wrote this solely for your enjoyment (hopefully!) and for me to have something to pass the time with._

_please have fun with this, and thank you for everything!_

_\- mandi_

~☾~

The wind was nippy tonight. 

San shuts his eyes, lets it run its fingers through his hair, lets it dance with the threads of the rips in his jeans and cool over the decaying heat of his face. He feels it annoyingly tug on the end of his eyebrow, raising both of them once to cut the steady teasing of the breeze and silently telling it to go somewhere else, to go bother someone who wanted its company. He sways, feels his body lightly rock to the imaginary music the wind was playing for him, to the percussions the moon bounced against him, as he dances loosely in her creation, letting his feet kick lightly and feeling the slight bumps to the back of his shoes as they hit the edge of the cliff he sat on. He had a flame of happiness for a moment, filling his chest and stuffing the hollowness of his bones as he smiles quietly, that the street leading up to this place had been empty for once. He was belated in the fact that only he was here, that nobody could watch him, that only he could feel the Earth and revel in how she made him feel. 

He loved the Earth a lot. Tonight in particular, when his head was full and his heart was hollow and he just needed to be alone out here.

He opens his eyes again, swallowing and feeling the cottony uncomfortable that his dry throat brought to him, wishing he had brought a bottle of water or something out here before coming. His chest felt heavy, as if he had already been sinking to the bottom of the sea and had his lungs fill with salty forgiveness as he danced with the waves. 

He brings his bottom lip in between his teeth as he stares at the water below him, studying how the moon casted a blinding silver ribbon against the navies of the water, how the waves break their stride just to allow her to fill it, how the rocks closest to him were decorated in slimy algae and looking up at him with open arms and an inviting gaze, how the smell of salt was nearly addicting as it filled his head and settled in the back of his eyes like nicotine. 

He thinks that it was wonderful, how the ocean could be just as vast and just as empty as he had been, though she had life beneath what he could see from here.

Choi San, however, did not. 

It was _hard,_ being here on his own. It was hard knowing where to go on the first day of school and trying to keep himself hidden in the crowds, it was hard staying awake after not getting enough sleep the night before from snoozing with his nightmares beside him. It was hard saying goodbye to his mother as he watched her in the hospital bed, being surrounded by chemicals and the suffocating smell of latex as they pushed him out once the beeping stopped. And it had annoyed him, that beeping and that loud breathing because he just wanted her to be okay, but he didn't want it to stop, just like that. He hadn't imagined the sound to change so suddenly, as if the world was listening to him with intent.

How awfully bittersweet the universe could be to him.

He wasn’t supposed to be here by himself, he was supposed to have parents and friends that he could look forward to seeing at school and he was supposed to be engaged in class to get good grades to grow up and make something of himself but he _wasn’t_ and it was the hardest thing in the fucking world for him to do.

He scoots a little closer to the end of the cliff, feeling the rockiness and jagged edges of it digging into his thighs and he almost wants to move, just so he could enjoy the moon and how it peers at the creations of the ocean, so he could keep staring at the foamy shore and how the rocks beneath him glimmer like jagged jewels in the world’s most precious ores. But he thinks that he might just deserve it, for the way he thinks so little of everything around him when other people have it much worse. 

He used to think that there was nothing worse than leaving his mother behind, but he’s learned to believe there was. 

There _had_ to be. 

He presses his legs down onto the rock beneath him, wincing a bit as it began to ache in a way that he felt in his entire body, a flame lighting in his spine that he knew all too well. 

He lets a breath escape him, letting his hands run over the rock he’d sat on, paying extra attention to the way it felt underneath his fingertips, how it felt underneath his fingernails and he grimaces at the feeling but he doesn’t stop, and he wonders how many times he had actually sat down and took the time to appreciate the world. He loved it, he cherished being outside and relishing in the sunlight during a cold day, or looking at flowers near the sidewalk and feeling how pretty their painted petals felt in his hands. He knew he didn’t deserve to be here among such pretty things, from the most dangerous snakes to the brightest phase of the moon. 

He was guilty, that it took him so long to come out here. He wanted to take everything in, after being away for so long.

San feels barren, his chest filled with the burliest winds and weighed down by the dunes that Atacama could never top, and he wants to finish crying, but he felt like he had nothing left in him to do it. It was weird, feeling like a walking shell, and he was _living_ but he didn’t really feel like he was alive. He looks up into the stars, seeing patterns that he thinks are constellations but he didn’t really know, considering he’s never been stargazing before. He feels bad, knowing that he would probably never would get the chance to considering there were no good places to see them, but he likes to hang onto the idea that there were the brightest and prettiest stars where he was going, and he could live among Andromeda and Perseus rather than watching them from a distance when he got old and had a white mustache and the universe had decided the rest for him. 

He wanted so badly to play with the stars one day. It’d be everything he’d wanted.

He stops kicking his legs, lets them dangle as gravity plays with his shoelaces, the canvas of his shoes dirty and faded to a filthy burgundy rather than the red that polished the wings of ladybugs, but he forgets about it once he watches the ocean. He thinks this is good for him, to be out here and watching the world go by when he felt stuck in his head all day. His mother, who brought him the most love once, caused him the most pain and resentment to everyone and everything that wasn't himself.

He had the freedom to do what he wanted, and he thinks that might be the worst of it, because he had no one to worry when he was out this late. His mom would have killed him to know that he was nearly an hour from home, sitting at the edge of a dangerously high cliff and watching the moon paint the sea. 

The sound of the waves crashing against the rocks takes him back to the times he would go to the beach with his mom. 

He would play with the sand, make sandcastles and cry when the water would pull in the tide and ruin them. They weren’t even good sandcastles, but he tried his best and his mom would tell him that she was so proud of him and his stupid fucking sandcastles. 

He cries again, not noticing how hot tears really were until they pooled into his eyes and singed his skin, rolling down his cheeks and creating sticky paintbrush strokes of all the memories he had let slip away in such a short time. He thinks it’s almost pathetic, and he wants to get up and maybe go for a walk and come back later, but there was something in him that he knew wouldn’t let himself do that. He wouldn't come back out here if he left.

That would be a favor, and San’s given himself enough favors recently. 

And even through his blurry vision, as the waves melted into the rocks like burning candle wax, he thinks it’s beautiful. He scoots a little closer to the edge, feeling the imbalance between himself and rock beneath him, a feeling of adrenaline melding into his desolate chest, letting his head hang, his jeans splotched navy as he silently gazes to the waves, as if it were nothing. 

As he thinks to himself, lost in his ashy cloudy head and realizing just how suffocating desolation really was, the sky begins to cry with him, thin needles of rain piercing his hair and his skin and puncturing his back in an icy terror that he didn’t think the Earth was capable of. And it was soft, until it switched, like the television on the wrong channel, and soon he was being beaten underneath the rage the sky brought. She was angry with him, but he understood.

Anyone would. 

The rain covers his eyes with cold hands, bites at his sensitive skin as it flattens his black hair against his forehead and soaks into his clothes, and he feels that same guilt again that it would be angrier once he left to sit in his bedroom and play video games again, or shut his window blinds and sleep for half the day just to wake up and play even more video games. He shuts his eyes again, wanting to fall back into his head as he looks up into the rain, letting it wash over his face and take with it everything he had been and everything he was when his mother had left. And it hurt, stung so badly against him, but he breathes and lets the resentment of the sky hit him, slowly abuse him as he had done the world. 

He permeates with the petrichor of the rain as the Earth sunk in greyscale, covering everything with cinder as the clouds began to pry, and San felt like he was drowning already, but he could stay out here all night if he wanted to. He doesn’t do anything, just lets himself be doused in the loudness of the rain as he’s soaked, swinging lightly with the weightless feeling of being stuck in a cycle of hatred just for him, and in a twisted way, he feels better.

He feels good knowing that the sky was just as furious and bitter as he was, that it was shared and he wasn’t going through tonight alone. 

He didn’t want to be alone. 

_His shoulder._

It’s barely there, when he feels something warm on his shoulder, and it really should have scared him so bad that he fell off the edge of this cliff, but he only hangs his head and opens his eyes, more tired and exhausted than when he came out here. He’s annoyed, because he knows that it’s someone who came out here for a late night walk or maybe their car broke down and they had nothing else to do as they waited for a tow truck, and he knew how this looked but he thought that being nosey wasn't much of a solution to anything, either. He hoped so badly that the streets would stay empty, but hope wasn’t enough lately and _god,_ couldn’t he just be left alone?

He wanted to yell at them to just _fuck off_ so he could be by himself, but he doesn’t. The urge is strong, and he feels a little sorry for the person even though he knows he’s the one who really needs it, but he stays quiet.

“Hey.” 

It’s so soft, his voice, it makes San want to think. He didn’t know exactly about what, but he just wanted to think about it. 

It was light, nearly shimmering just as brightly as the moonlight against the ocean below them. It reminded him of crystals in the afternoon sun, how they glinted and produced a beautiful reflection of the world’s most brilliant lights, like the neon signs in his favorite 99 cent store, revealing pretty flecks of gold and silver hidden beneath its surface. There were many places his voice had been, and San kind of feels upset of all the people that heard it before him. He relaxes a little bit, trying to put a face to the voice that had spoken to him, a simple word that probably didn’t even care that much about him, making him stop.

San breathes in deeply, as best as he could through the thick sheet of rain that was soaking into his clothes and into his soul, filling his chest and smothering his heart as it ran down his face and off of his nose. He feels like he’d been boiling once he crouches behind him, and he’s kind of mad at him for interrupting him as he was trying to build up another world for himself, in the unforgiving cold the rain had brought him. 

“What do you want? Why are you here?” San asks, quietly against the rain, bringing up a heavy hand to run through his even heavier hair, brushing it out of his face and shutting his eyes, trying to go back into the broken and black paradise that he had made up within the past couple of hours he had been sat here.

“Do you really want to know?” 

San thinks that his voice might be prettier than the rain’s tonight. He hadn’t heard one like that in a while, pillowy and comforting and San can’t help but imagine him running through a field of daisies with it during the changing summer of the end of August, like the saccharine drip of strawberry ice cream in the heat. 

“N-no. Not really.” 

“Okay.”

He feels the boy still behind him, and he could _feel_ him staring into his back. Chills pour down his spine and litter his skin with goosebumps when he pictures him staring at him and all of his broken glass, his eyes like gentle spotlights, and he feels naked in a way, though he was shielded with the rain and the thickest sweater he had in his closet. He didn’t want the boy to see him in any way, not now, not ever, because he knew he would notice how damaged he looked and how pale his skin had become in the past couple of days and how his heart was hanging onto him by a thread. 

He knew he would _really_ see him if he kept staring. 

San doesn’t even realize how the rain was beginning to alleviate, beginning to slow down, as if the boy had magic on the dandelions that carried with his voice of spring breeze. 

“How come you’re out here?” 

San blinks, his eyebrows raised just slightly in unconscious caution, because he knew he would ask but he really didn’t want to answer. 

He shrugs. 

“Why are you?” 

The boy doesn’t answer him for a moment, and he feels a little capsized in the idea that he didn’t feel like answering. He wonders if he felt this way when San didn’t answer his own questions. 

“You said you didn’t want to know. Not really.” 

San blinks. He did say that, but a small part of him _did_ want to know. He doesn’t think he could really come back from that, but he tries anyway. 

“I changed my mind. Tell me.” 

“...Do you change your mind often?” 

San’s head fills with static, like a balloon rubbing against the strands of his conscience the more he speaks to the boy. He was itchy, wanting to go back to thinking and dreaming in the rain, but the more he talks to him, the more he’s pulled into reality and the more uncomfortable the rain was and the more painful the rocks under his legs felt.

“Are you gonna tell me? Or not?” 

The boy sighs lightly, but San could barely hear it, though the rain seemed to cease with time. 

Time. That was a thing that they were living in and doing right now. It felt like it was nothing when he spoke to him.

“Well, I was driving home and the rain was getting really bad. My mom told me that driving in hard rain was dangerous, so I pulled over here to wait until it stopped, and then I saw you. I decided to come to see what you were doing.” 

San is nearly lost in Wooyoung’s thought process, lost in the way the highs of his voice complemented his words, and as he talked about driving in the rain, San almost visualizes what that was like and wants him to keep going. He thinks he was too caught up in something as unimportant as his voice, but he couldn’t help it. The rain parted just for them to talk, and the moon was quiet to give them room, but the waves were still dancing with each other below him in company. 

He focuses on the drops of rain insipidly splattering onto his jeans from his hair to give himself a distraction from everything. 

One...two...three, four. One, two...three...four, one.

Okay. He was okay. He was almost freezing and he was troubled with being drenched and achy, but he was okay.

He moves his toes slightly to feel the slosh of rain in his now ruined shoes and it takes everything in him to not grimace at the feeling of the wetness on his body. Normally, he wouldn’t mind. But as he sits out here with him, it felt like there was a split in his rift brought to him by his summery voice alone and he wants to listen, wants to go somewhere else and talk about what he did today. He doesn’t know why he’s so interested in hearing him. 

He just _is._

“Did I disappoint you?” He asks, his voice soft and wary as he spoke against the world.

“A little bit. I thought you might have been a ghost or an alien waiting to kill me.” 

San smiles at that. Sometimes, he does feel like an alien, like he was invading everything and everyone and he wanted to go back home. But where was there for him go? 

His house wasn’t home. Not really.

He then remembers why they were even having this conversation, and he finds it nice, the immense humanity in Wooyoung’s intentions to keep himself safe, compared to his own intentions to do the exact opposite, maybe stray another hour from his house or see how far the water could take him if he reached the shore by low tide. He was almost too free tonight, and with the urge to run from himself, he felt like he could do anything he really wanted.

“My mom used to tell me stuff like that, too.” 

San thinks that was maybe why he never got his license, because he would think too much about his mom sitting in the passenger’s seat as his father stopped at red lights and telling him to watch out for things in the road when they used to go places together, or remember all the things she told him would kill him if he wasn’t too careful. 

He was only six. He remembered.

It seems like being careful wasn’t enough to keep her safe in the end. There was no use for it. 

“Used to?” 

There was a silver needle in his heart, at the word _used._

It pierces his ribcage as they tried to protect his fragile heart of butterfly wings, but he was too weak to not let it bother him, and soon his heart felt like it had stopped beating, and he was numb, despite his eyes welling up with heat and he felt the need to cry one more time. He scoots back from the edge of the cliff, the rocks digging into the back of his knees now, and his thighs were still aching, but it wasn’t as bad as before. He can’t look at the sea again, feeling like he let it down in not doing what he came out here for, getting interrupted as he tried to be in its company like the world had been for him.

It seems like he was very good at disappointment.

San only nodded, and he was thankful that Wooyoung opted for staring at him and figuring out what that meant rather than asking about it. He didn’t know if he could tell someone again and relive the memories he tried desperately to scrape out of his head, but they were rusted and couldn’t leave and rotted his brain, taking over all the good and covering them with blank ink. 

“What’s your name? And how come you’re out here? It’s wet.” 

“My name?” San nearly forgets, losing himself in the novel that is the boy behind him, escaping in his imagery and floating in between every sentence and exclamation he made. “It’s San. Choi San. And I came to think. I do it a lot. I like to do it a lot.” He technically wasn’t lying, but he figured obscuring a part of the truth would make him not want to run away, just like everyone else. 

San can’t see him, but he imagines him looking at the ground to take in what he said.

“...To think, huh? That’s good. Life is busy sometimes, and most of us don’t have the time to think...I think that would solve half of the world’s problems. If we just stopped to think sometimes.”

San looks at his knees, studies the hole above his right one and watching a raindrop from his hair slide over the bare expanse of skin, and he can’t help but smile. He doesn’t know if it was because of how naive he sounded, or if it was because he agreed, and nobody else put it into words until he did. 

He didn’t know. But he was smiling, just a little.

He wipes the raindrop from his knee.

“What’s _your_ name?” San only asks to get the attention off of him for once, to take an opportunity to listen to Wooyoung more and learn a little.

“I’m Wooyoung. It’s a little weird, and someone told me once that it was hard to remember. If it helps, all of my friends call me Woo. Like the sound you make when you’re on a rollercoaster, or if you’re really happy. _Woo!”_

San thinks his name was just as pretty as the way he pronounced it. He thinks of wildflowers billowing in the wind, or of the feeling of being free during summer’s vacation because classes wouldn’t start up for a while. It was in the way he said it that made him remember his name to something of freedom. His name sounded like how rose petals felt in between your fingers, how cherry blossoms fell from trees or how petunias bloomed perfectly in the fall. It was weird, but he saw beauty in his name. 

_Wooyoung._

It was beautiful, and different on his tongue compared to everyone else’s names he said aloud in his lifetime. 

“Wooyoung is a nice name,” San tells him, just to be polite, and he brings a hand to his hair again, this time weighing slightly less, as he runs cold fingers through his wet hair and feeling how strange the texture was against his skin. 

Everything felt strange against him, right now. 

“Thank you. I like your name a lot, too. It reminds me of the sun. Is that weird?” 

San shakes his head, and it’s then when he has yet to look behind him and see what Wooyoung really looked like. A part of him didn’t really care, but there was a desire, just in case he saw him on the sidewalk or in the grocery store one day and he could point him out and talk to him a bit more. He didn’t know, and he thinks it’s sad how he relied on Wooyoung so much already and he didn’t even know his last name. 

“It’s starting to rain again. Would you want to come into my car to not get wet? Or, anymore wet? I could put the heater on for us.” Wooyoung switches his thoughts again, like a strike of lightning in a storm of ideas. _“Hey,_ what if we go get hot chocolate? I know a really good diner where my friend works. It’s still open!”

San resists the urge to cry again, at the fact that Wooyoung was just fifteen minutes into being with him and talked to him as if he were his very best friend in the world, and he feels his soul begin to perk up and his heart was beating again and he wants to sob into his hands at being cared for like this, even if he was just a complete stranger. Wooyoung could have walked away and not have given a fuck about him after their conversation like every other kid his age he's met in this garbage, idle town, but he was offering to let him into his car and get hot chocolate with him. 

He ended up crying anyway, and Wooyoung gets frightened a little because he didn’t like seeing people cry, especially if he was the cause. 

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to…” Wooyoung’s voice falls once he sees San cry harder, bringing his hands up to his face and seeing him dip his head lower, as if he was ashamed and wanted to hide from him. 

Wooyoung felt his heart plummet for the first time in a while, to see clenched teeth in a frown and cheeks blushed from the pressure. Of what, Wooyoung wouldn't know. But he understood that it was there, like blinking or breathing when you sleep.

The rain was picking up, and Wooyoung felt it slide down the back of his neck and hit his already soaked jeans, so he stands and holds his hand out for San to take, feeling the slight ache in his muscles for squatting for so long, but he brushes it off as the rain hits his skin and begins its incessant prodding. He bends down to reach for San’s hand, and San immediately pulls back slightly, staring at his hand and watching the way the rain drips off of his fingertips and slides down his wrist over the silver rings adorning his fingers, glinting in the moon like asterisms to gems. 

He puts his own in it after pushing his brain to just _let him_ , taking his hand and letting Wooyoung pull him from the cliff, slipping a little bit from the wetness of the rocks underneath his feet. His hand is radiating, warm and safe, despite the rain and how it was now blistering onto his skin as it picked up almost too quickly. 

For the first time in a while, he wanted to get out of the rain. 

He watches Wooyoung pull open the passenger’s side door, seeing his black shirt clinging to his skin and jeans the color of obsidian darkened with the rain, and he slips in, silent, not really connecting with everything that was going on. He stares at the dashboard, his eyes raw and stinging and he doesn’t know if it’s from the storm outside or the one raging in his head, and it’s muffled against the car for a moment, until Wooyoung opens the driver’s door and gets in, water dripping onto the gear shift and the inside of his door and on the leather of the seats in here. 

San feels nearly too scared to talk. 

Wooyoung breathes out a sigh, just as the heater kicks in, and San didn’t even realize he was still frozen in his own ice until Wooyoung pointed it out.

“Why are you frowning? Why did you cry?”

Wooyoung seemed to say things before he thought, and in a way, San kind of admired it in the fact that he was still childish and still curious about what the world had to offer him. He was sunlight at the bottom of the sea, fighting through San’s waves and getting tangled in the weeds that stuck in the sand, but he reached. San takes this opportunity to look at him again, to really study him inside the dimness of the moon’s shine.

His hair was black, just like his, and he thinks that in the way he expresses himself, they might have been alike in some way. There was a beauty mark right underneath his eye, underneath his pretty shaped eyes that sparkled halcyon and trembled with curiosity for him that makes him want to open up, just for a little while, to see that spark diminish. 

They’re bathed in the blackberry wash of the nighttime as San runs his eyes over Wooyoung’s face once, then twice, and he sees him staring right back at him, looking at him as if he was the extra credit question on his math test, but he’s not worried about him noticing all of his flaws or saying much about them right now. 

Wooyoung felt like company.

And not the company that you get when you’re in a room full of kids you don’t know in class, or when you’re at work and there are customers littering the aisles.

It was the kind of company that you had when your pet walks into the room as you read your favorite novel, the kind of company that you get when you’re with your very best friend and listening to the sound of their breaths as they slept beside you while you played a game on your phone, or watched your favorite cartoons on their television.

And San has yet to really _know_ what that felt like, but he thinks this is a pretty good start.

“Uh, I...I don’t know.” San shakes his head, and looks at his jeans running a hand over the hole in his knee and feeling the threading and the fabric that he came to hate in a short span of time. “I don’t know.”

Tonight had been especially bad. He was trapped in a terror, almost pulled out the frayed threads of his head until Wooyoung decided to interrupt him. And he was still kind of mad that he let him do that. But he felt the need to stay out there and talk to him. He had nothing better to do anyway. He blinks, snaps out of his spider web thoughts once Wooyoung pressed his hand to his head, and he feels the cold rain on his scalp and thinks Wooyoung was very touchy for a stranger, but for some reason, he doesn’t mind it.

It’s like his world was completely reversed, like his empty rooms reverberated underneath Wooyoung’s steps, creating hollow music from his strings as he freely walked around him and all of his thoughts and all of his feelings, He looks at Wooyoung, that same urge of wanting to curl up under blankets by himself or lock the doors to his treehouse coming back to him, and he feels warm.

Wooyoung made him feel warm just but looking at him, just by pressing a hand to his head to let him know he was there. And he still has that same wary feeling that he could kill him at any moment if he wanted to, watching one too many murder mystery documentaries, but he wasn’t afraid. 

It was becoming very hard to be afraid of Wooyoung the more he spent time with him.

“Do you still wanna go get hot chocolate?”

San feels the heat coming from the vent on his cheek and in a part of his wet hair, and he shivers once as he looks at the clock.

It was 1:34 in the morning. He had school on Monday.

“I didn’t bring my wallet.”

“It’s okay. I’ll buy you a million hot chocolates. We’re gonna go there, okay?”

 _I’ll buy you a million._ San focuses on the taste of it, focuses on the whipped cream that would sometimes get on his nose, focuses on the scent of powdered chocolate and how the cleaning products that the diner probably used would bother his nose, and he feels of sylvanshine, lit up only in the presence of Wooyoung’s daylight eyes and cloudy smile, and he doesn’t know why he has the urge to cry again but he does.

A tear runs down his face as he nods silently, throat clogging with an acidic lump as he slowly puts on his seatbelt, reveling in how the rough fabric feels against his sensitive skin, how the air around him made him feel dirty and how his sweater was soaked between the leather and his back. He was still wet, and each drop of water felt like stabs of ice into his skin, but he undeniably appreciated Wooyoung’s efforts and decides to make the best of it, despite feeling disgusting in more ways than one and the memories he's been trying to suppress all night were as clear and vibrant as ever. This was Wooyoung's fault - he could have been on his way home by now, but instead, he was thinking about him and everyone at school and everything at home.

The clock changes to 1:36.

And even as the sky cracked apart, cried just as loud as he had not too long ago, smacking the glass of the windows with heavy fists and chanting angrily as it hurtled on the world beneath it, Wooyoung still shone brighter than the moon had been on that cliff. He was drumming his fingers along to some silent beat that he was probably rocking out to in his head, looking around carefully to watch the rain until it let up so he could drive and not worry his mother. San stared at him again, because frankly, there was nothing else to do in the car and by the looks of it, it was very old and the radio only played FM and San would rather not stare at it while it crackled back to him like crinkling a chip bag filled with nothing. He adjusts himself in his seat, immediately regretting it once he felt the slosh of wet jeans and socks and the cold taps of rain on his shoulders from his wet hair.

Wooyoung’s hair looked almost blue under the moonlight, glistening with rain as it slid down his face and into his damp shirt, but he didn’t seem bothered at all. He was just watching the world go by, enjoying himself and ticking his own personal clock as the rain _finally_ began to let up again, and by the time San was done taking Wooyoung in again as best as he could from his peripherals, the windshield was glimmering with the star’s light and the only sound that could be heard was the AC working to keep heating them up.

He sighs lightly, holds a hand up to the vent and feels his fingers defrost in the heat. His fingernails were slightly dyed a pale blue, the color of celestine bleeding into the soft pinks and he gets a little worried because he only ever saw that in movies where they die of hypothermia.

But then he realizes he’s being too dramatic, and pulls himself back into the coziness of Wooyoung’s car rather than past the universe and into the dark infinites of space.

And as he starts the car to take San to his favorite diner to get hot chocolate with him, he thinks Wooyoung is too good to be true. He keeps the idea of never seeing him again in his back pocket to think about when it eventually happens. He looks over when Wooyoung turns the radio up a little bit as he stops at the four-way near the end of the neighborhood, the static getting louder, but he pressed a button that only he knew how it worked, and there was soft indie music cradling them in irregular kick drum rhythms and minor chords that only a certain group of people would like. 

Wooyoung begins to tap his fingers on the steering wheel again, softly, as if to try and not grab San’s attention but he needed to do it.

He admired how cool he was during all of this. The dead of early morning, you’re driving and you find a stranger, alone at the very edge of the only cliff in town, and he cries when you offer him hot chocolate and doesn’t talk about his mother and his hair is black just like yours and he’s got bruises on his soul and acid where his heart should be. He would have freaked out, probably would have left him there if it were him. He and Wooyoung were complete opposites in that respect, too.

He really admired how good he was, how pretty his heart was and how welcoming he'd been.

And as the streetlights flash past them on the way to the diner, glowing sandstone illuminating them in a comforting and indeterminate surge, San begins to think Wooyoung’s spark would never diminish.


	2. short names and how wooyoung's been looking at him recently

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! sorry for such a delayed chapter, i hope it's not too boring and you guys like it! updates will be terribly slow and i apologize for that if you want to keep reading :(((
> 
> please don't give up on this au! i'll finish it eventually c:
> 
> enjoy!

San’s been staring at their hands for a little while now, takes in how they fit perfectly in one another’s and how his entire being was warming from just Wooyoung’s fingers. Or maybe it was the heat coming from Wooyoung’s heart, how it flowed into his bloodstream and perfumed his skin, permeated into everything and everyone around him like it was nothing. 

He didn’t know. But he was warm.

He takes his free hand and runs it through his hair one more time, in that awkward stage of being dry but still damp and the strange texture was going back to its normal soft capacity. San decided that he wouldn’t touch it again until it was dry, and maybe then he could cross that off of his list of Things To Not Let Wooyoung See. He would probably be disgusted, and he knew his fragile eighteen-year-old self-esteem couldn't handle something like that from a boy like Wooyoung.

He thinks he cares too much about Wooyoung and _way_ too much about his hair.

His legs felt like lead as Wooyoung dragged him towards a diner, his old jalopy the only car in the lot, emptied and bare, the trees hushed around the borders and the moon stagnant as it highlighted just how desolate the streets could be so early in the morning. Through the window and past the open sign, San notices a boy sitting at the diner’s counter, illuminated by the harsh white lights above him as they glinted off the silver napkin holders beside him, smudged by dirty and wandering fingers, off of the stove behind him and the waxy pages of the magazine he was flipping through.

His cheeks were tinted with a pretty color, the shade of strawberry taffy that San remembers not wanting to eat when he used to open them because of how nice it looked in his hand. The boy flips another page, resting his face on his hand as his disinterested expression told San that he probably was the same age as he was, only working here because he had to, and he probably read through that magazine twice already. His whole demeanor reminded him of dimming light, only flickering because it had to, because he was plugged in and needed to work for others to use. 

San could tell that boy wasn’t _really_ happy, not working here.

And by the time he came to, he was already a few feet in front of him, separated by the door, Wooyoung still holding onto his hand, and he thinks that time went by too fast when he didn’t pay attention. The diner was almost frighteningly empty, as if this was located right in the middle of a deserted town and this boy was the last one remaining. It was eerily quiet, save for the buzzing hum of the old electricity and the squeaking of the stool the boy was sitting on as he slightly twisted his butt to the right, then to the left, then to the right again.

“Yeosang!” The door had a little bell on it, and it pierced through San’s head like thumbtacks, sticking and pressing and it was almost too loud for such a tiny bell. 

Maybe it was because he was so used to hearing quiet until recently.

“Woo!” 

San registers, and the boy’s voice is very different from Wooyoung’s, deeper and broader and even softer, as if it held the world’s most secret conversations and only told of them in the privacy of closed doors. It reminded San of flower petals, like the soft chalk of butterfly wings. It was nice.

It sounded like he didn’t talk a lot.

The boy's eyes flick over to San curiously, then back down to his magazine to close it, to pay attention to Wooyoung and this random boy he was holding hands with. 

He meets his eyes again, and they were bright in the lights of the diner, reflecting the prettiest white shapes that the LEDs produced above them. They were almost a mirror to how he was feeling, and San began to feel just as curious as he was as he looked him over and took in his dark, all-black outfit and how his auburn hair was parted down the middle and the jewelry he had in his ears and the long, silver necklace parting his chest down the middle.

San wanted to talk to him, just as easily as Wooyoung had spoken to him, but he hadn’t said a word since he got into the car. There was too much going on around him since then and he was trying to think about it and organize everything in his folders for thought before he said the wrong thing. 

He’s done it way more times than he was comfortable with and he was afraid of messing it up with Wooyoung. Sure, he wanted nothing more than to be left alone. But he didn’t mind him.

“Hi, Yeo. How’s business?”

Wooyoung seemed just as friendly to Yeosang as he was to him, and he starts to wonder if he just had a natural talent for being sweet to everyone. San kind of envied that, because as much as he wanted to greet Yeosang like Wooyoung had did, he was scared of saying something dumb and knew he probably came off awkwardly. He knew staying silent was just as bad, and he was caught in one of his many ruts when it came to talking to people.

He almost sighs aloud.

“Super busy. I’m so booked right now, the stress is killing me.”

Wooyoung smiles and looks around, inquisitive, as if he hadn’t noticed the diner being filled with empty tables before, San watching as Yeosang gets up from his stool and grabs two menus. He could tell that he was just as, if not, more shy than he was around new people, and for a moment, it makes him feel a little bit better about having yet to say anything to either of them. Yeosang grabbed two menus from a stack near the napkin dispenser, and gently placed one in front of a seat nearest Wooyoung, and then one in front of the seat right beside it. He looks at San again, his eyes tired, yet vibrant with all the interest in the world, his silver bracelet lightly clanking against the counter as he gives a soft smile to San, probably seeing how terrible he looked.

“Hi, Woo’s friend. I am also Woo’s friend, Yeosang, but you can call me Yeo.” 

San thinks it’s better to not make assumptions about people.

“See how our friends call us really short names?” Wooyoung tells San, and the corner of his lips curl up into one of those sun shaming smiles and San thinks of the fact that Wooyoung called him one of their friends atop of his smile of spring sunrise, and has to look at his shoes. 

It was a bad idea, by the way. His shoes were completely ruined and it pained him that he had to throw them out.

“Not all of us. You can’t shorten Jongho’s name.”

And San kind of gets intimidated because it felt like he was suffocating with just two, but he thinks there were many more people that Wooyoung was friends with and he hoped he didn’t have to meet them today. Or any day, really. Wooyoung and Yeosang were more than enough.

“Jong.”

Yeosang makes a face that gets Wooyoung to chuckle again, and he lets go of his hand to take the stool where his menu was placed. San nearly misses it, and wants to hold it again just for the purpose of anchoring onto something so he didn’t feel like he was truly alone tonight, but he thinks that was a little weird and opts for bringing the sleeves of his sweater down over his hands instead. His heart was beating slowly as he sits on the stool beside Wooyoung, ducking his head to look over the handwritten menu and gives Yeosang the best smile he could manage behind his freezing mask.

“Thank you.” San presses his warm hand to his knee again, picking at the stray threads from the hole. “I’m San. My name is San.” His voice comes out like tissue paper, wavering and torn, but he doesn’t know what else to say, how to say it.

“San, huh? That’s a cool name.”

He could only smile when his cheeks heated and bled roseate.

Wooyoung and Yeosang began to talk to each other again, and he feels awkward, like he didn’t belong here. He was isolated in Wooyoung and Yeosang’s universe, the planet that nobody really dared to go near, and he was just _there_. He could tell they were trying to make him feel welcome, by starting conversations with each other and Wooyoung asking San questions that related, but he was off and he knew they could tell. Wooyoung didn’t even know San’s last name and he was so out of place with their dynamic. They were stellar streams around his orbit, like Moon Caliban and Ariel to the sun itself in an unknown suspend and the deepest parts of space, and he felt alone again in a room with two other people, felt dim between the two brightest stars he’s ever really seen.

“I hope Wooyoung didn’t bother you too much,” Yeosang tells him, after Wooyoung spoke about finding San at the cliff, and even his voice comes out cautiously and San can’t decipher if it’s because of how he had looked at him or the fact that Yeosang was just really shy.

“He...He did. But it’s okay.” San trains his eyes on the menu, studying how Yeosang draws his letters and how nice his handwriting was, before looking up at Yeosang and then to Wooyoung, offering a small smile to tell Wooyoung that he wasn’t being that serious.

“Sorry, San. I know you probably wanted to be left alone. But it was raining!”

San almost doesn’t want to reply, because he had already told Wooyoung it was okay and he didn’t want to keep talking. But there was a nag that made him open his mouth as quickly as he had kept quiet.

“Thank you. I think I needed someone to come distract me. I hope I didn’t cause too much trouble for you.” San’s kind of surprised at how much he spoke without really thinking, and he sees Wooyoung look at him but he couldn’t tell exactly how or why, and his heart jumps with the way he smiles against the light of the diner and he has to look back at the menu again.

“Thank _you._ I didn’t think you’d agree to come here with me.”

“Couldn’t say no.”

San goes back to the menu and lets his eyes wander over the menu, his smile slightly fading when he feels Wooyoung still looking over him, probably wondering why his sweater was so big or something, and he almost glances up again to tell him to stop but he hears Yeosang begin another conversation about class. It’s almost like he could see everything Wooyoung was thinking, as if he could feel how nervous San was, and he needed something to break the silence with. 

He thinks it’s embarrassing, how he’s so transparent.

San lets his left hand go slack beside the menu, relishing in the stinging cold of the counter against his skin and thinks that maybe this would melt away Wooyoung before he did so himself. He knew he would leave eventually, and being on his own again was something that he was becoming more and more afraid of the more he spent time with him.

And he knew Woo could see through his plastic because he kept glancing at him and he had a feeling that they would be holding hands a lot more often after they left here. San doesn’t know if he could handle all of this attention; he feels his self-esteem being pulled at its seams and he wasn’t even talking to him yet. He had zero friends on this planet, because he was too weird looking or maybe it’s because he didn’t talk. But he still couldn’t get over Wooyoung coming to keep him company at the cliff, and now he was about to spend his entire morning with him, maybe even the day and the afternoon and the twilight before the cycle started over again. He feels sad; he knew he probably was a burden for him but he didn’t ask for this. 

This was weird, is this really what your friends do for you? Should he be concerned?

San decided that he hated Wooyoung now, instead of later when he relied on his company. 

No, no. He couldn’t do that. But he tries anyway, and it was a failed attempt and he wants to cry because it was frustrating wanting to get angry with someone so genuine, like trying to crush daffodils beneath your feet on the sidewalk or screaming at the sun. 

It was just impossible to do.

“San? Did you hear?”

San blinks, and soon the counter wasn’t as cold anymore and Yeosang was peering into him with eyes the color of wooden treasure chests at the bottom of the sea, Wooyoung’s voice like the waves that split the rocks beneath the cliffs in town. The light above Yeosang flickers slightly, and if San was distracted he would have missed it, but he caught it and had to blink one more time.

“Wh-what? I’m sorry.”

“I asked if you were ready to order something. If not, just tell me when you are and I’ll make it for you.” Yeosang tells him, looking over his clothes and his face once, bringing up a hand to scratch at his cheek as he shoots San another grin.

San feels the overwhelming urge to cry again. This kind of treatment was so foreign and strange to him and he didn’t know if he was being impolite by not talking or if they thought he was weird for staying quiet. He didn’t know how Yeosang and Wooyoung worked and he was terrified of making a bad impression and he had no idea how to pay either of them back for being so nice to a stranger Wooyoung had met just forty-six minutes ago. 

He didn’t _know_ and he wished he could just be normal.

His cheeks heat up with an embarrassed swelter as he stares at the menu.

“How come you...Why are you being so nice to me?” San asks, his voice reminding him of chalk drawings on the street, and he swallows once Yeosang is silent for a moment.

He feels so diametric between them, noticing how such a short quiet could scream volumes into your head.

“Well, why wouldn’t I be? Do I look like a bully?” Yeosang tilts his head and his sharp eyebrows come in a little bit and San is still very worried but he tries not to let it control how he feels in this diner right now.

“I…I don’t know.” San can’t really answer, considering all of the times he was punched across the face in middle school and sometimes through sophomore year, the pain came from people he didn’t expect to be so hateful.

He’s learned not to expect too much from anyone. Not himself, not Yeosang, and definitely not from Wooyoung.

“Yeo is very bad at being mean. He tried it once.” Wooyoung says, and he looks at San beside him and once he turns his head to meet his pretty eyes it feels like the world erupted in stars and space dust and there were galaxies in the way he spoke to him like he was the only one on the planet that deserved his time.

San’s heart springs, like the rush he used to feel on roller coasters, but even the bleed of adrenaline into his blood was slowed when Wooyoung looked at him. And he must have felt the same, maybe, because San could see his eyes flickering back and forth between his own. He wondered if everyone’s eyes had the most dazzling glitters painted within them, if everyone looked as golden as Wooyoung had been under the blinding white lights of the diner. He knew the world didn’t stop spinning, that people still go on with their day and alarm clocks still ring at 6 in the morning on weekdays, but it really felt as if the rivers stopped flowing and the trees paused their billowing underneath the looming shade of the nighttime winds just to stop and stare at Wooyoung.

It was hard not to.

“Yeah. You guys laughed at me.” Yeosang’s eyebrows come together stronger this time as he pouts, looking nearly childish and San tries to cover up the fact that Yeosang’s voice almost frightened him with how it shot through his thoughts with a smile..

He really should figure out where the hot chocolates were.

“It was funny!”

“It was _not!”_

And San could see what he meant because even as Yeosang was whining to Wooyoung, he still seemed childlike. He was just too nice.

“Hey, San. I know I said I’d buy you hot chocolate but please get some food, too.” Wooyoung softens his voice a little and leans into San’s ear, as if doing so wouldn’t let Yeosang notice, and he heats up again, trying to listen but also trying to tell himself that this was just a normal guy and to stop before they think he’s sick. “...at home but I really can’t let you walk out of here without eating Yeosang’s food. He’s really good. Not to sound lame.”

“Aw, Woo. I will literally kiss you.” Yeosang’s voice carried challenge, and it made San’s heart feel something alien to see two people talking and joking and being with each other, like it was effortless.

“Dude, Hwa would step on me.” 

Another name shortened by friends. The lights flicker again, and San blinks.

“He’d never. He probably would kiss you, too.”

Wooyoung rolls his eyes with a smile, shaking his head slightly and looking down at the menu, his black hair a little dryer than San’s as it fell into his face and covered most of his forehead. San stops staring because he could see Yeosang looking at him through his peripherals, and goes back to the menu, looking at the different foods in the breakfast section and really didn’t know what to get anymore.

“Thank you. I’ll...I’ll pay you back the next time I see you.” San tells Wooyoung, and he makes two fists in the sleeves of his sweater, feeling his fingertips become cold again with the air in the diner.

“Are you implying that we could hang out again soon?”

The question catches San off guard, and he feels like he really had slipped off of that cliff now. It made his heart plummet, as if he had said something wrong, and his cheeks are blushed ruby as he glows with embarrassment, eyes blowing wide at letting something like that come out of his mouth.

_Jeez._

“Uh...y-yeah. Yeah.”

San feels unsure, and the topic of seeing Wooyoung again after tonight makes his heart flutter, his butterflies filling his chest with a sort of excitement and wariness for him. He was excited; Wooyoung was full of many mysteries, like the epinephrine of finding an unknown cave, or a beach at the edge of nowhere. He was free and it was dangerous, but felt he had enough protection with him if he was there. 

He felt safe with Wooyoung and his unknown last name.

“Good.” Was all he said.

And San found more than enough in that one word.

It takes a little while, but Yeosang makes San the breakfast he ordered (more like what Wooyoung ordered for him), and he thought that toast and butter tastes differently when it was nearly 4am. There was something about the turning of the clock so slowly in the early morning, and the haunting shade of the need to sleep, that made everything taste better, everything looked better and everyone sounded better.

Yeosang was the complete opposite of talkative, because once Wooyoung stopped prompting conversations between the three of them and began to talk to San about all of their friends, he went back to his magazine after he made them more hot chocolates.

He learned that Yeosang lived with a boy named Seonghwa, the _Hwa_ that Wooyoung had mentioned before, and he’s the one who practiced with him to cook and he would try everything Yeosang made for him and told him how good it was even if he had burned it or put too much salt. He knew about their friend Jongho and how everyone treated him like their son even though he was barely two years younger than San, and about how he was studying music and loved to sing in the shower and how he was very good at breaking open fruit. He learned about Hongjoong and all of the adventures he goes on and all of the crazy, impromptu things he likes to do with them after classes and during the weekends, and about Yunho and a red-haired Mingi and their relationship and how Mingi loved flowers so much that Yunho got the group to plant him a garden after he came home from work on a Friday and he cried in Yunho’s shirt.

There was a gypsophila patch in the local botanical that Yunho dedicated to him and would take him when he was feeling down.

_Mingi said it reminded him of my smile. I smile like gypsophila! See?_

And San didn’t know what in the world those were but he agreed that Wooyoung smiled like the most beautiful gypsophila the planet could ever create and kept it at that when he began to talk about something else.

Every story made San really want to meet these people, made him wish that he made friends with people who had kind souls and flaming hearts and spoke like they had rainbows in their chests and a head full of stars. He didn’t have any friends like that.

He didn’t have any friends.

“How much do I owe you?” Wooyoung asks, taking the last sips of the remainder of his hot chocolate before setting it on the counter, San hiding slightly behind him as he stood there, watching Yeosang flip through his magazine, Wooyoung’s silver rings lightly clanking against the ceramic of the handle and making a sound that reminded San of the bell his second-grade teacher would always tap to make the class be quiet.

It never worked.

“Bold of you to think I’d charge you.”

That makes San smile, and he looks at the grit in the tiles as he listens to Yeosang and Wooyoung’s conversation, still feeling isolated and still feeling like he didn’t belong at all. But it was nice to listen to. Maybe it helped him feel like he was a part of the group; there were three of them but it felt like two, maybe one and three-quarters. 

San scratches a sudden itch on the back of his left hand, careful not to push too hard because it would make his skin raw and he hated the feeling of burning. He never has been burned before but he assumes it’s something close to that and he never would wish a burn on his worst enemy. 

He didn’t have any, but if he did, he just wouldn’t.

 _“Yeosang!”_ Wooyoung whines, lolling his head a little to the side to emphasize his point of wanting to help Yeosang. 

This just made him that much more good to San. It made Yeosang that much more good to him, too. 

“You owe me your love and support.” Yeosang had a small smile pinned to his face as he began to place their empty hot chocolate mugs onto their even emptier plates, finding humor in Wooyoung’s protests to do something for him, but he wasn’t the type to expect favors from anyone, not even his friends. 

He never expected them, and turned them down if they were offered. That’s just how he was raised.

“But I already give you that.” Wooyoung’s voice was soft in the middle of the silence that the diner brought, almost echoing off of the empty walls, as if all the conversations they heard throughout the day were superseded by the need to hold onto Wooyoung’s instead. 

The back of San’s hand was itching again, but instead of scratching it, he rubs it on his jeans, suppressing the itch just barely with the rough denim of his pants.

“Well! Debt’s paid!” Yeosang turns with the two plates and goes next to the stove, San peeking over Wooyoung’s shoulder a bit to see there was yet another chrome counter and a sink with a springy faucet. He watches as Yeosang hadn’t even looked up at Wooyoung since the two started talking, telling San that Wooyoung must do that a lot and Yeosang was very, very used to it. 

They had a nice dynamic. San was foreign to it, but still, felt a little jealous in the fact that he didn’t have anyone to talk to, to insist on doing something nice for them after they made him hot chocolate and a huge breakfast in the morning. He feels strange. Not sad, but a close recall of. He hides behind Wooyoung a little more, just in case Yeosang did look up and decide to question him on why he looked so down. 

“At least let me help you put away the forks and shit.”

Yeosang stops in his tracks, about halfway from the sink to the counter to get their silverware.

“Touch them and I will stab you with that knife.”

Wooyoung gasps, and San could practically see his lips part in slight shock, and he finds it almost laughable but he refrains from even giggling. It felt weird to do that, as if Yeosang and Wooyoung would notice him and think he was rude for involving himself. 

He begins to think that he worries himself too much.

“With the butter knife?”

“With the butter knife.”

_“Yeosang!”_

Yeosang leans over the counter and pats the top of Wooyoung’s head once, slightly ruffling his black hair and San felt the misty remains of leftover rainwater fog over his forehead. He wipes it without saying anything, and it’s then that he realizes just how wet he still was from the rain.

He wants to go home and change.

“Go play. I need something to do, anyway. This is the fifth time I’ve flipped through this magazine.”

“I’ll get you more magazines to read.”

Yeosang nodded with a shrug. “Okay, I’ll allow it.”

“Alright, deal. See ya, Yeo. Thank you again.” 

“Anything for you two. Bye, Woo. Bye, San!” Yeosang’s voice sounded like balloons, like the thin exterior and the airy depth of it. It was tethering, pulling San out of his thoughts that maybe Yeosang didn’t like him, all clipped by one swift cut of Yeosang’s scissors. 

He thinks it’s wonderful how Yeosang was so nice to him, didn’t really question who he was or why he was here or what exactly he was doing. 

He smiles back at him, bringing up his hand to wave softly at him as Wooyoung grabs his other to lead him out of the diner. He tries to ignore it for a second so that he could focus more on Yeosang in the short time they had before he was out of the door, cheeks immediately heating because he didn’t know what to do, really. 

But he manages for Yeosang to see him.

“Bye, Yeosang.”

His voice is soft, almost reminding him of the dew drops that form on grass blades at exactly 6:05 on a Monday morning, and he wished he could have just acted normal but he couldn’t and he really hopes Yeosang didn’t think he was some freak who had an ugly voice. 

_Come on, man. Who cares if you did?_

Yeah, who cares. Nevermind. 

“Where to next?” Wooyoung asks, and San blinks, bringing himself back into the present, Wooyoung gently tugging him along to his old car parked in the middle of two parking spaces because _nobody’s gonna need it, really,_ nearly stumbling over himself to catch up with an eager Wooyoung. His black hair bounced softly against the night with every step he took, his smile of radiance and casting his whole being in a gentle glow that San thinks could beat the moon any day. San liked to admire Wooyoung, from the back, from the front, from the side, from a 45-degree angle, from anywhere. 

He just stared. He couldn’t really help it. 

But he remembers his question and the want to put on dry clothes after a hot shower and then need to sleep until the late afternoon today.

“It’s...It’s late, Wooyoung. Isn’t your mom worried?”

And San swallows heavily because he sometimes wished he could say the same about himself. But he couldn’t, so he decided that reminding Wooyoung about his mom would make him feel a little better.

It didn’t.

“Oh, _shit!_ Yeah, she probably is. Shit. She’s probably calling me as we speak.”

Wooyoung pats his right pocket with his free hand, then his left, and as San watches Wooyoung’s features change into fear and could practically feel his heart drop again with him, and he swallows, raising his eyebrows silently.

“Cliff?”

Wooyoung nods, sighing and pulling his keys out of his back pocket.

“Cliff.”

“Okay. We’ll go to the cliff and then you go home.” San tells him, opening the car door and feeling how cold it was under his palm, pulling it and getting into Wooyoung’s still warm car, despite spending nearly an hour in the diner, maybe more.

“I’ll drop you off?” 

The question makes San anxious, for some reason. He didn’t know if it was because he didn’t want Wooyoung to know that he lived by himself, or see the shingles falling off the roof by the window near the power generator, or see that his lawn wasn’t mowed because the mower broke or see that the paint was chipping from the walls near the door. He was anxious.

He immediately shook his head.

“I’ll walk. I live super close.” 

And he didn’t, he lived a whole hour from the cliff and that was by driving. But he figured going on a walk would end this night in typical San sense and he wanted to do it. Lying was okay for now, if it didn’t hurt Wooyoung. He’d be okay.

Wooyoung nods, and San wants to feel bad because he believed him so easily, and didn’t question him at all, just like Yeosang, but he doesn’t. Not when he starts the car, not when they leave the diner, and not when they were on the way to the cliff.

San almost wants to feel bad for treating Wooyoung like this when he went out of his way for him, but he didn’t.

He would leave him alone anyway, so who really cared?


	3. how the sun rises and how san falls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!
> 
> sorry for the late chapter :((( this already has a bunch of kudos and hits and comments already and??? i appreciate everything so much :( i know it's not a big deal and i hope i'm not being annoying but thank you for reading so far, despite these terribly slow updates and boring chapters. i hope it's not too bad!!
> 
> thank you!! <333
> 
> enjoy! (^-^)

“So, what made you go to that cliff if I may ask?” 

The morning was beginning to get lighter, having passed the peak of early darkness that 3am brought, and as they sat in Wooyoung’s car at that same cliff they met, waiting for the sun to rise, San didn’t feel an ounce of exhaustion.

The entire morning had been his energy drink, the highs and lows of Wooyoung’s voice laced with a steady caffeine drip and his whole demeanor was like opening the curtains in the morning to start your day. He reminded San of clear seas that you would see in vacation photos, the soft billowing of palm trees in the most golden sand Earth had to offer. 

Tranquil and pleasant, just like him. 

And San finds it a little weird how he spent so much time thinking about Wooyoung when he wasn’t even doing anything. He was just breathing, blinking, as his ochre eyes watched the sun, and he looked almost bored, but there was a glow in him that reflected in the way his eyebrows quirked every so often as he watched the sky, finding his thoughts in the wispy clouds or the birds shaded in ebony that flew across the sky every so often. 

San found himself staring on many occasions throughout the morning, and he really hoped Wooyoung hadn’t seen him because he would have a tough time explaining it to him if he ever asked why. 

His clothes were slightly stale with the morning rain, now dry except for his socks and underwear, and he was able to take off his shoes and socks and dry his feet with the napkins Wooyoung keeps in his car - the other problem, not so much. 

San goes over Wooyoung’s question once more, and realizes he had already answered it. He had to repeat himself again, and almost wants to not answer but he _knew_ it was rude and his mom raised him better than to ignore other people or make them feel stupid. He wanted Wooyoung to feel just as good as he had been feeling today.

So he answers.

“I told you. I like to think.”

His hair was dry and his cheeks were warm and he felt of kindled candlelight once the sun began to slowly rise, illuminating with a growing flame just as she kissed the moon goodbye and greeted the clouds and the water below her. The sky melted in shades of rose as a brûléed topaz brushed the atmosphere and covered the moon’s transparency above them. It was beautiful, really, and San was never one to stay up and watch the sunrise because it would require waking up way too damn early, but he decided today would be the only day.

It was nice, nicer with Wooyoung beside him.

“Are you thinking right now?”

San almost wants to say no, because it really felt like his head was devoid of thoughts sometimes, and he thinks it might be because he’s thinking of heavier things that take away from what he _really_ wants to set his mind to, but he doesn’t.

“Yes.”

“About what?” Wooyoung asks immediately, as if on cue, and San blinks once, looks at his feet in Wooyoung’s car and tries to think.

There was really nothing to think about, if he was being honest. All of the heaviest thoughts in the world were weighing down his brain, yet, he had nothing to think about.

He glances at Wooyoung once, who’s staring at him and waiting for him, and San wonders how many people Wooyoung’s had to be this patient with before. He looks back down at his feet, wordless, and there are stars in his head and moondust at the tip of his tongue. 

“You.”

“Me?”

San nods, looking up again to see the silhouettes of a pair of birds fly over the water from their position on the cliff. He sees Wooyoung’s eyes on him in his side view, not really knowing where his eyes were going or exactly what they were seeing, but they were watching.

“What does that mean?”

San looks up, but not at him. He didn’t want to look at Wooyoung so much, now. His eyes kind of stung as they met the overwhelmingly bright light that covered over the early morning in a shining varnish, and the water was glistening below them and it felt like they were going right into the sun with how close they had gotten. 

It hurt his eyes. He shuts them.

“I don’t know anything about you. Just that your name is Wooyoung, and your friends call you Woo. That’s all I know.” San can imagine the sunrise in his head, just less bright and with more birds and there are flowers inside and outside of the car, gardens down the sidewalk and the clouds are fluffier, and that’s when he remembers that he was a living human being with thoughts and memories, so much so that he went to the cliff after midnight just to breathe in the world because those same thoughts and memories that he liked so much were backward and taking over his head and sitting heavily on his soul’s shoulders. 

“You’re okay with talking to strange people you meet at the edge of cliffs and taking them to go get hot chocolate and breakfast at four in the morning, and you’re okay with watching the sunrise with them and you’re okay with your hair being black and you’re okay with having a lot of piercings in your ears. You’re okay with lots of stuff. Don’t you ever get worried about things?”

Wooyoung is silent, and for a moment, San wonders if he had said too much. The air is stagnant, like when the class is taking a test in silence but you’re really hungry and you’re anticipating the moment your stomach’s going to rumble and embarrass you and give your classmates something to remember you by. Stagnant, and increasingly uncomfortable in San’s eyes because he was so used to Wooyoung talking, filling the spaces and nooks with his lyrics of his friends or the choruses of his mom being worried about him, all while San listened.

He liked to listen to Wooyoung. Being this quiet was strange. But he speaks, finally, just when San is about to open his mouth to apologize.

For what exactly? He liked to think it was for making things awkward. He didn’t know for sure.

“How ‘bout we play twenty questions?”

San sighs, blinking ever so slowly, suddenly stuck in his usual spiel where time wasn’t really moving - not with them, not away from them. He felt stuck, but not so much where he wanted to leave. He was okay for now, being stuck in between the civil twilight and the start of the world again, the sixth degree of Wooyoung’s timelessness and the sun hiding behind the horizon, peeking at them and listening to their muffled conversations.

“Okay. You first.”

“Where’s your mom?”

_For fuck’s sake, Wooyoung._

San swallows again, heavily this time, as if there was a golf ball in his throat and he really could use some water. He shuts his eyes again, trying to suppress all of those memories, trying to find _something_ bad within them that he could use in his arsenal against himself when they got too strong.

He had trouble fighting himself to begin with. There was never a winner.

He couldn’t. There was nothing wrong with his mom, nothing bad between them and he could only remember how bright the sun used to be, how colorful the rainbows after rainstorms were and how noisy the stars used to be in the nights before she left.

He tells himself that Wooyoung just didn’t think about what he says sometimes. And that was okay; San’s like that, too. They just didn’t _think._ He didn’t mean to bring her up and make him cry.

“She’s dead.”

Saying it almost makes it less real. He bites the inside of his bottom lip and his nose begins to feel like pins and needles, stinging and his eyes are warm but he tries to think about anything else, anything at all to get his mind off of his mother. There was a familiar sadness that started off in his chest, then burrowed down into his bones and poisoned his bloodstream and he felt sick, ill with his most favorite and most resented part of his head that housed her. She was still with him, and sometimes, he wished she wasn’t.

Jeez. This was tough.

“What’s your…” San breathes a little noisily through his nose, fighting against the tears that have pooled, “What’s your last name?”

“Jung.”

“Jung Wooyoung?”

Wooyoung nods, running a hand through his dark hair to get it out of his face as he glances out of the windshield again, and San thinks this is a little awkward because he really _didn’t_ know Jung Wooyoung, but it felt like he did and it felt like he knew Yeosang, as if the three of them were friends from kindergarten and they were lucky enough not to split through the summers. 

But he didn’t know him. And it was awkward.

“Okay.”

“Wait, was that a question?” Wooyoung asks suddenly, making San look at him and sometimes he wishes he didn’t look at Wooyoung so much because when he does, he feels like if he looks away again he’s going to miss something.

He didn’t know what he’d miss, considering Wooyoung did everything any normal person, but he just didn’t want to miss it.

“What? About your last name?”

“No, when you said Jung Wooyoung. But you asked it.”

“Oh. No. No, it doesn’t count.”

“Okay, okay.” Wooyoung looks out the windshield again, and it’s then when San notices the first blush of yellow and orange streak across the sky, painting the clouds in a chalky roseate amber and San thinks that it’s probably one of the most breathtaking things he’s seen in a while.

One of them. 

“What happened to your dad?”

That question almost turns the sky dark again, almost makes the sun hide away and the clouds dissolve against the nighttime. But they were still crawling across the world, dazzling against the Earth, and San knows he has to respond or else nothing will happen. The world keeps going, whether he wanted it to or not. He didn’t have time to think so much.

They’d get nowhere.

“Dead.”

His dad wasn’t really dead, but it felt like it a lot, and he only said it because a part of him wanted to make Wooyoung feel bad for asking. He felt bad about it because he knew his mom wouldn’t like him telling other people that, but his dad was practically a ghost anyway and maybe he wanted Wooyoung to kind of feel that emptiness that he had felt and make him understand without having to speak more than he had to.

He wanted to make Wooyoung feel bad, too. 

And he’s successful, because Wooyoung goes quiet for a little and his eyebrows come together slightly, something that San had learned meant that Wooyoung was thinking a little too hard about something.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”

“Nobody really thinks. It doesn’t matter.”

And it does matter, _so very much_ to San, that his dad was gone and his mom was dead and he couldn’t tell her about Wooyoung and where he’s been all night and all morning and feel like someone cared for him when she lectured him about staying out too late, but he puts it in his back pocket to remember to tell her when he saw her again.

He’d never forget to tell her about Wooyoung, even if he didn’t stick around for long either.

San keeps his eyes trained on the floor, his feet out of focus and now he’s looking at the few leaves he’d accidentally brought in from outside the car, and despite being red and green and even orange, they were gone, devoid of life, just _there_.

San felt like that sometimes, when he thought about his mom and how he was by himself all the time.

“When’s your birthday?” Wooyoung’s voice brings him out of his thoughts again, and he noticed just how strong sunlight was, pressing a hand to his hair and feeling how hot it was under his palm. 

Is it because it was black? Should he try white next time and lay out in the sun to see if it made a difference?

Hm.

“July. Yours?”

“November.”

”Your birthday is coming up.”

“And your birthday passed a little while ago. What did you do?”

“I read. I went to the bookstore and found some new novels in the fiction area and bought like...ten. I read them until I fell asleep. That’s all I did.”

“All day? That’s _all_ you did? You turned eighteen and for your birthday you read books.” Wooyoung’s voice is flat, and San could tell that he disappointed him again, but he can’t help but smile. 

It sounds so fucking lame coming out of someone else’s mouth. 

“What else am I supposed to do?”

“Go out with your friends!” Wooyoung smiles excitedly, as if he was talking to Yeosang again, and San could tell he was thinking about his own friends and how much they go out on weekends. Wooyoung probably went out with them for his birthday, and Yeosang, too.

“I don’t...I don’t have any friends. To go with.” San wasn’t sad, or embarrassed. It was more like, _how many times do I have to keep saying it aloud?_

He didn’t like saying it aloud, either.

“Oh.” Was all he said.

They fell into silence again, the only sound was the soft indie playing from Wooyoung’s old radio as he pressed the on button, filling in the space, as always. San kind of liked how the drums sounded, and he could hear the bass in the song and he always wondered why he never picked up one of those instruments. Nobody ever really talks about the drums or the bass in a song, unless it’s a crazy fill or louder than the rest of the band.

Nobody really appreciates them.

He stares at the radio, watching the green digital letters glow in the pitch dark of the shadows that the sunrise brought, and sees the name of the song that was playing. He’s never heard of it before, but he repeats it in his head once, then twice, and he’s got it. 

The bassline comes on again and he smiles.

“Hey, San! The sun is rising for real! Look, see?” Wooyoung’s like a silver needle, piercing his thoughts and disrupting him enough for him to look up at him, points to the dashboard and San has to squint a little bit as the sun had moved to right in front of them, still hidden behind the crest of the cliff, but the sky was yellow, soft and inviting, like the colors of the purest gold, or as if fluttering canaries had taken over the sky.

It was pretty.

He doesn’t say anything to Wooyoung, but he looked at him as if he did, and the sun had warmed over his face and lightened his brown eyes, pools of honey staring right at him and staring at all of his insecurities and thoughts and feelings and all the words he’d wanted to say, and suddenly, San feels shy.

He doesn’t know why. Maybe the nighttime allowed for a jaded perspective of Wooyoung that he couldn’t see until the sun allowed for it. He feels like Wooyoung could really _see_ him with the light outside, rather than being shadowed by the moon. 

And he makes him feel shy at 5:46 on a Saturday morning.

He looks at his feet again, seeing Wooyoung do the same as he looks out of his window, at the tress softly billowing in the doldrums that the east end of the sea brought, San trying to focus on the new basslines of the song that was playing now, but it was hard.

His heart was too loud over the song.

“Okay. I’m gonna go home. Go back to your mom. I know she’s worried and you know it, too.” San unlocks the passenger door manually, not wanting Wooyoung to try and convince him to hang out more because he was getting really tired underneath the sun’s light this morning, not being one to catch enough sleep, well...ever. 

He picks up his socks and shoes from beside the car, seeing that they were both still very wet and he was in the dilemma of either wearing wet shoes or wet socks _on top_ of wet shoes or just tough out the walk barefoot.

He decides on the latter, shutting Wooyoung’s door, and on his way to the opposite end of the car, he hears Wooyoung open his own door before he started it up again. He was a dark amber against the shadow of the sun behind him, his hair darker and he looked pretty on both sides of the universe and San thinks he really was capable of doing the impossible without even thinking about it.

He blinks once, and Wooyoung sighs, almost sullenly, as if San was leaving on a big adventure and wouldn’t be back for a while

“It was fun to hang out with you.”

San nods. “Yeah. You, too.”

“We never finished our game of twenty questions. We only asked like...like six.”

San shrugs. “It’s okay.” He didn’t really want to know more about Wooyoung. He wanted to, but he didn’t really.

San and Wooyoung are looking at each other again, and he can’t tell what he’s thinking but he looks troubled. San watches Wooyoung look at his own shoes, beat-up Vans with checkered patterns on the tongues and red streaks coming out from the heels.

San liked Vans a lot. He liked Wooyoung’s Vans a lot, too.

“Do you...do you have a phone?”

His voice takes him out of his thoughts of the shoes Wooyoung wears on his feet, and he looks up at him, sees his hands in his front pockets and one of his heels is in the dirt as he looks at him, his entire aura shyer than he used to be. 

“No,” San says, and he looks at the shoes in his hand then to the way the sunlight behind him made the rocky surface of the cliff look like molten lava beneath him.

He was warm.

“Don’t lie.”

San sighs again, knowing that Wooyoung would text him and now he really couldn’t get rid of him even if he tried. He thinks he’s being too risky, but he blinks at Wooyoung and remembers everything they did together this morning and he feels guilty again, an electric ruse of it shooting down his spine and shocking his heart, but only a little.

“Sorry.”

“Can I have your number?” Wooyoung asks him, while ducking back into his car and grabbing his phone, lying on the center console, the screen light harsh and so out of place against his face as he unlocks it to add San’s number.

Turns out the bright light only lasted a second, and San sees that Wooyoung had his phone on night mode, and sees they’re similar in that regard, too.

San tells him, and Wooyoung calls it right in front of him. He kind of feels offended, but he knew he didn’t have any right to considering he just lied to Wooyoung’s face before this.

And about his house being close by.

And about his dad being dead.

Wooyoung hangs up once the phone rings and goes to voicemail, San practically seeing the notification on his phone from its place on the nightstand in his bedroom, and he kind of gets a tinge of excitement now that he has a connection to Wooyoung outside of his car and Yeosang’s diner and the cliff after midnight.

“Wooyoung?”

Wooyoung looks up at him, his eyebrows raised in question and San thinks he looks really nice against the light of the sun, like an eclipse in the golden trim of the wonders of the world, all right in front of him. And while he’s staring, he feels that sick sadness in his joint again.

He can’t lie to him. San sighs, and his stomach hurts a bit with how big of a breath he took. He just sets himself up for these things, it was just how he was.

“My dad isn't really dead. But he kind of is. He’s never home. And my house is very far from here. Like, an hour away. And I’m sorry for telling you I didn’t have a phone.”

“Where’s your dad, then?”

San shrugs. He’s somewhere, but San really couldn’t tell him exactly _where._

“I don’t know. He still pays for the house rent and stuff. But he just doesn’t live with me.” For some reason, San didn’t feel bad at all. He didn’t really care that his dad didn’t care enough to live with him, but only slightly to make sure he was fine within the house.

He didn’t feel bad. It just meant he didn’t have to work as hard to make money.

“Where’s your house? I’ll take you.” Wooyoung doesn’t offer condolences, doesn’t look the slightest bit sad for him, and San really likes that he did that.

He didn’t want condolences, and Wooyoung probably knew that.

San shakes his head. “I’ll walk.”

“Barefoot?”

San looks at his feet again, sees the dirt that he’d built up from walking the short distance away from Wooyoung’s car all over them and he grimaces when he thinks about putting socks over his dirty feet.

He nods. “It’s fine.”

Wooyoung’s quiet, and San could see how thoughtful he really was. Whether he was thinking about his friends or the world or himself or San, Wooyoung was always, always thinking. San wondered how big his head must be to be so quiet, but so loud all the time.

“San, I won’t lie to you, okay?” 

San nods. “I might lie to you.” 

Wooyoung makes a face, but San can’t really read it from the way the sun shadowed his features, covered him with her hands and arms and shielded him from San. San understands; he would hide from himself, too, if he had the chance.

“Don’t.”

“Okay.” San says, but he doesn’t know how sincere he could really sound without Wooyoung knowing he didn’t really mean it. There were going to be some things that San would rather keep to himself, but he was being honest when he said he would. If Wooyoung right now were to ask him if he was alright, he would tell him yes. 

Big lie.

“I’ll never understand you, San.”

San thinks he won’t understand Wooyoung, either. Not really.

And he watches him get into his car, look back at him once, as if he needed to say something or was making sure San was a real person, really was there, standing in the sun’s light so early in the morning and it wasn’t just an exhausted haze of getting no sleep. He shuts the door, slamming into his thoughts and crushing his focus for a little, only for him to realize Wooyoung was actually leaving. He saw Wooyoung glance at him as he passed by him, heard his car slow down, but San didn’t look up at him, refrained from even glancing at the street as he kept his head down and walked along the sidewalk. 

Wooyoung drove off, and San watched his car speed down the neighborhood street before turning left at the intersection between the corners of really big houses that he felt intimidated by, just by looking at them. 

He felt weird. He didn’t really want to walk alone.

He did anyway, under the sun’s gaze, and this time, he didn’t feel lonely. He knew he was by himself, but he was okay. The walk home reminded him of how much he liked the earth, how much he liked the tulips that reminded him of Wooyoung’s smile and the puddles of rain reflecting pretty clouds beside the sidewalk that reminded him of himself as he walked past. Reflections of what beauty really was. He reflected everything around him, but he never really got to look at himself. 

The air was stagnant again, and San felt gross, as if he had the residue of the morning slathered on him, getting into the shower as soon as he got into his house, not even bothering to turn on the light as he let the sun flood into the slits in the blinds that covered the single window by the shower.

San, for once, felt like he had someone. And it was so loose, his grip on Wooyoung, and he was still being pulled by the weight of the thought of him leaving him, turning on him and deeming him alone. But this was something that was new to him and he could feel the anxieties of it in his bones and flowing through his bloodstream when he thinks of him, thinks of him stepping on his fingers or cutting the strings of his balloons that were working so hard to keep him up.

Wooyoung was open, yet a complete enigma, like a book that was written in invisible ink and was on display for anyone to read, if they could. San could not, and he really tried to put his own thoughts and ideas into him, but he realized it was impossible to write over another author’s work.

He decided that he was going to try harder for him. He thinks about how he acted and hoped that he didn’t come off too shy or mean or anything. He tried his best not to talk for that reason. 

Did it backfire?

By the time he’s done figuring out his day and himself and his Wooyoung, the water ran cold and his feet weren’t dirty anymore and his hair was wet and slicked against his forehead, dripping into his shoulders, and they remind him of icy kisses, but they were freezing and he didn’t really like them anymore. 

He changes, looks out of the window by his closet and contemplates opening it, to let in more light and the air from the morning because he thinks that maybe he needs it. Maybe it would help him out, to hold onto something as long as he could before he slept.

San decided against it, opting for sitting on his bed and leaning against the headboard, shutting his eyes and thinking about everything and everyone. He kind of wanted to see Wooyoung again, wishes that there were more hours in the early day to be the only two people scouring the world while everyone else was sleeping. Time was nothing when it came to him, and San couldn’t get enough of it. He was cigarette smoke, filling his lungs and muddling his mind, Wooyoung just like bees settling on the budding flowers of his thoughts. 

Wooyoung was good at filling space and occupying heads. That’s what he was _really_ good at.

San smiles when he thinks of them as astronauts, maybe gliding on Saturn’s rings or stepping in the puddles of Mars.

It quickly fades when he’s got that song stuck in his head, now, strongly remembering the car for more reasons than one and how warm it had been and the ironed out topaz that the warm sunlight brought in, like autumn had been in the car rather than outside. He sighs deeply, softly banging the back of his head on the headboard as if it would help him remember, and he thinks he deserves the sting for being so mean about Wooyoung and expecting him to come back after trying to push him away.

He deserved it. He deserved to be alone. 

And in his self philosophies, annoyance tugged on his nerves and irritation rashed over his skin in an ugly itch as he tries to make it up in his head, but he comes up short.

He forgot the name of the damn song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i finished reading addsu and???? i loved it so much like! dante’s side was kinda super relatable and the writing was so vague yet told so much and their dialogues were perfect and it was such a precious book. people r so different. we r all living and dealing with ourselves and the world is mean but love is a cool thing and i hope we all experience it at least once in our lives with our parents or the people we meet during the summer.
> 
> such a good book :(((((
> 
> anyway thank u for reading!!!


	4. dreams and how wooyoung wakes up in the afternoon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!
> 
> sorry for the late update if you're still reading this! i've written the ending and have a bunch of chapters lined up to finish writing. i hope u guys are liking this so far. please enjoy!
> 
> also i hope u guys are staying safe during this time and that you're not overworking yourself. please don't stay in the dark all day and text your friends! drink water and remember to eat!! ilu and am hoping that you're doing well, whoever's reading this c:
> 
> enjoy!

Dreams.

There were many things that made up a dream, and many things that became one. San would never understand them, what they really were or where they came from. He wouldn’t understand why his were always so vivid, yet so lackluster in the way they played the same movie too many times. But he dreamt a lot, whether it’s when he slept, or when he’s studying in his room and hears a pretty song play on shuffle, or when he’s thinking about Wooyoung and all of his inquisitivity, or the secrets of how desolate the cliff had become, or of his mother and how she was doing. San loved getting lost in himself, a real and quiet dreamer who spoke of nothing yet told of everything. 

Dreams were weird, mysterious and scary - they were the rest of the Pacific below the dark and freezing that still has yet to be discovered, the abandoned house at the end of an eight-six street that was rumored to really be haunted. Dreams were fragments of the deepest consciousness, the shards of your life mirror floating up to the surface of your head with the need to be projected on a screen for you. San would never understand how dreams worked, he just understood that he had many broken mirrors and enough memory in his projector to watch them all. He didn’t understand why the memories of something so lucid were always blurred and skewed when he wakes up and tries to remember, tries to piece his shattered mirrors back together, but he understands exactly who it is, every single time he dreams, and he understands exactly why, _every single time he dreams._

He dreams of Wooyoung when he sleeps, and he dreams of him when he wakes. And he wants to shake the ghost of him because he knew he couldn’t relive last night, but he was beginning to grow fond of the whispers of his wind chime giggles in his head, or the way his voice always sounded like chandeliers when they were lit exactly right. Jung Wooyoung was engulfed in the prettiest of corona, as if he was made of glass and the stars perched themselves in the nightshade of his heart, reflecting in their most beautiful jewels and glittering stardusts and San thinks he couldn’t get any more spectacular than that. 

He loved to see him.

The sun is low when he wakes up today, his window leaking molten gold and warming a spot at the foot of his bed as his room swallows the dainty glow of the afternoon. His room had erupted in a delicate yellow, the color of daffodils, soft and welcoming, and as he waited for his body to wake up, staring at the ceiling and taking his time to paint imaginary constellations, he feels like he could do anything today. 

The day was still relatively young, but it was aging quickly and he needed to get out of the house again.

Maybe he would visit Yeosang’s diner, pop up in all of his shyness to keep him company while people trickled in and trickled out. Maybe he would go back to the cliff once the sun sinks past the horizon and pulls the aurora down to the surface of the ocean, to see how differently similar the world was past a certain time every day. Maybe he would go down to the beach below the nighttime and swim against the gentle currents that low tide brought, bathe in the moon’s light and breathe in the stars when it got darker. 

He didn’t know, yet.

He _did_ know that he wanted to be alone. A small part of him kind of wanted Wooyoung to be alone with him, to keep him company even if they didn’t talk to each other much in their time together, but at the same token, he didn’t want to be around someone who was the complete opposite of him, sewing up his patches and ironing out the wrinkles in him so effortlessly, so oblivious and dumb to what he was doing. Wooyoung was so…

Nice. 

That was it. 

He was so nice in every regard and San knew he couldn’t keep up with him. He was going too fast in getting to know San against how much he wanted him to and his legs were aching and his lungs were about to burst the more he tried to speed up to him. It was difficult, and it made San nervous and he thinks his swollen heart beat faster in the past twenty-fours than in his entire life and he hated how heavy it felt right now at the mere thought of him.

He doesn’t know if he wants to see Wooyoung anymore. He doesn’t know if he would be a good friend to him in return. He balled his last thoughts up and threw them away, only for now.

San doesn’t know why he feels weird about his phone having no notifications today, apart from the missed call from Wooyoung this morning. He was expecting, but in that sense, realized how selfish and entitled he was being to just expect Wooyoung to care more about him than he deserved. It made him kind of upset, but not so much once he thought about it.

He didn’t care. He didn’t care.

San adds his name in his phone and saves his number, squinting against the bright light and how the LED contrasted so heavily with the light outside, and once there’s nothing else for him to do at the moment, there’s the soft weight of sleep on his eyelids, thickening his blood and cushioning his bones again as the threatening lullaby of his creaking ceiling fan rendered through his room. He wanted to go back to sleep, although having just woken up from a...what? Ten-hour sleep?

 _God,_ he needs to get up. 

San looks at the sunlight casting silhouettes from his window on the wall across from his bed, turning the white paint splashed on his walls into a light lemonade, decorated with the charcoal shadow of his window, and it looks nearly unreal, something that he’d find in a search box. He thinks he has it good, being able to do what he wants, whenever he wants.

But he never did, for some reason. He never went out too late, and when he did, he had that lingering guilt on his back that he would carry with him as he walked under the stars. He never smoked or drank or did anything crazy because he didn’t want to worry his mother. He didn’t do much of anything risky, really, because he didn’t want her to worry. And he knows he shouldn’t feel guilty if he ever got the chance to invite someone over, but he didn’t know how she would feel about it.

She wasn’t even there, but San still cared for her as if she was.

San blinks slowly, feels lethargic in his attempts to mentally energize himself, softly curling his fingers in his blankets and feeling how cold it had gotten last night. He liked it when it was cold. It was nice, the alluring coolness of his skin giving him almost too good of an opportunity to go back to sleep, but he knew if he did that, he’d wake up again at ten at night and then again at three in the morning the next day and he’d have to keep himself busy for four hours until he had to run to school. It was a vicious cycle, all determined by the willpower of a sleep deprived high school kid.

_Come on, get up._

It takes a little, but he manages to anchor himself to his mattress, yet finds it within himself to sit up and swing his legs over his bed, pressing his feet to the sleeted, marbled tile of his bedroom floor. It was stinging, almost, the cold making him want to stay in bed, but he had slept way too much and his body clock was so messed up that he was actually contemplating skipping school again on Monday.

No, that would make it even worse. He’d have to go.

_Get up._

San stands himself up with much effort, letting his head hang as he swayed gently in the empty space of his room, feeling his hair flop into his eyes and he knew he probably looked like the embodiment of death and this was one of the many times he was glad he lived by himself. He stretches his back, reaches for the clouds and the stars and the undiscovered galaxies past the broken shingles on the roof, feeling his bones crack like packing peanuts, and it was good until he did it for too long and felt uncomfortably weird once he put his arms down.

Broken, almost. He shouldn’t have done that.

San winces, moves his shoulders a bit and relishes in the air, quiet and clear, as if he’d been on a remote island and the water was just as blue as the offing in the horizon at noon on the dot. And he’d be radiating in the sun as he listened to the water sing to him again.

He loved to listen to her songs.

San blinks, takes a deep breath in and if feels like he didn’t have it in him to stop breathing and his lungs take up so much of him that his stomach aches as his ribs stretch, and he lets it go, lets go of this morning, lets go of his mom, and lets go of Wooyoung, only for a moment.

That moment was very short, but it had been enough for him.

And when he’s thinking about what to do today, just when the sun begins to fade with the heat of the sky that shone rubies and lavender at a certain time, his phone chimes, lightning into him like a pick in a block of ice, and he really wanted to continue planning out the rest of his day but he couldn’t get it out knowing that it could literally be Jung Wooyoung texting him.

Either him or his dad, and he hoped to everything above the stars as he unlocked his phone that it was not the latter.

 **wooyoung:** _san san san sna_

 **wooyoung:** _san hello_

(San reads over the messages again, a strain of giddiness in his chest that Wooyoung had been thinking of him. It didn’t help that he was alone while the world whispered of freedom through his window, filling his chest with an empty breeze that reminds him of road trips with the windows down. Wooyoung was exactly that - empty highways tangled in the midnight hour.)

**_hi_ **

**wooyoung:** _HELLO_

(San really thought he’d seen the last of Wooyoung yesterday. He doesn’t know if he should feel good or terrible about taking up any more of his time.

He imagines him on his phone, excited in his usual demeanor, his black hair probably messy from sleep and his cheeks just as puffy as his own had been when he first wakes up, nose pink and his eyes barely adjusted to the harsh LED of his phone screen. His windows were probably drawn closed.

He decides to stop thinking so much about Wooyoung and what he’s doing right now.)

 **wooyoung:** _U WANNA GO TO THE DINER TONIGHT??_

 **wooyoung:** _LETS GO!!!_

 **wooyoung:** _sorry am i being too loud_

**_yes ur being so loud right now_ **

**_it’s hurting my ears_ **

**wooyoung:** _:c_

 **wooyoung:** _come on lets go to the diner today_

**_is yeosang working?_ **

**wooyoung:** _yes_

 **wooyoung:** _r u busy¿ we dont have to go but it's gonna b nighttime soon and nobody really goes at 11pm and i think seonghwa and hongjoong are off tonight so maybe we will see them!_

 **wooyoung:** _yeo was hoping u would come today \\(^-^)/_

 **wooyoung:** _he didnt want me to give him ur number tho bc he says that u didnt give it to him and it’s a breach of privacy_

 **wooyoung:** _idk if thats really true or not but he said no_

**_really?_ **

(San feels so dumb, how his chest feels like soap bubbles as he listens to him speak, like suds on top of bathwater after a hard day. He feels like he’s made of air, his heart made of stonehenge as Wooyoung blew wind through him, and texting him made him dream of him even more, in all of his obsidian and gold and iridescence and the platinum that radiates from the way he smiles at the smallest things.

Wooyoung was priceless, he thinks. He’d only known him for less than a day, but he was so _priceless_ to him and he feels so dumb. _)_

**_okay i’ll go_ **

**_11pm right?_ **

**wooyoung:** _yes around there! i’ll pick u up_

**_no_ **

**_i’ll meet u there_ **

**wooyoung:** _r u sure??? it’s gonna be a long walk i could just get u_

**_no_ **

**wooyoung:** _fineeee_

 **wooyoung:** _WAAAAAHHH I CANT WAIT TO SEE U IM SO EXCITED!!!_

(San grins again, the one that makes his eyes squint and he feels his cheeks apple, but it doesn’t take too long before he’s staring at the messages and hiding his mouth behind his hand. His smiles were nearly impossible to control, unsolicited and there’s another tinge of irresponsibility when he thinks of him, where they might go today, what they might do afterwards, if there was anything to do at all. 

San thought he was criminal in how he was doing this to him and he wasn’t even around, wasn’t even trying, and he feels little again, like when he would have a friend to laugh with about the at the zoo, or remember the kid who gave him flowers that day or kissed his cheek like their parents had done last week.

It was nice, being wanted like that. Rejuvenating, even, to know someone wanted you around and you were the reason they were happy. A small part of him still thinks Wooyoung is just being nice because he felt bad for him, but he ignores it. It's increasingly difficult the more that thought lingers in his head, but he gets rid of it after straining to crumple up his tissue paper thoughts and toss them.

 _God_ , he needed to get over it.)

**_me too_ **

(And as San hovers his thumb over the send button, he thinks that maybe he would sound too weird. He thinks that Wooyoung would see his message and then not want to hang out with him anymore. Was that weird to send? Seriously?

He quickly deletes it from the typing box and closes the messaging app, hoping Wooyoung didn’t see him ignore his text and he played it off successfully as him just not reading it yet. A part of him knows Wooyoung probably saw it, and that same part of him wanted to be embarrassed, maybe text back and tell him _hey, I didn’t know what to say because you make me really nervous, but me, too!_

He sighs.

San looks at his black phone screen and stares at himself as best as he could in his reflection in the hand-me-down sunlight at his window. He watches over his eyebrows and how the left one still had traces of sleep at the very edge from where it was ruffled, and he glances over his tired eyes and studies the violet stained glass underneath them.

He was exhausted, overall, and the creases in his face didn’t hide it. They were flashing neon lights in the darkest and most desolate city, drawing attention to the fact that San really doesn’t sleep enough, even when he could. He thinks this is his punishment for willingly going to high school.

San blinks, and his head drifts to Wooyoung again and how he wore black clothes and how unconventional it was for someone like him, how he loved to wear rings and jewelry and how he smiled at him and loved his friends so much and he was just so...happy...to see someone like him when he did. 

San lets himself fall back onto his mattress once he remembers that he had the rest of the afternoon to do nothing, pressing his hands against his forehead as he tries to get the remainder of Wooyoung out of his head.

He’s really got to get over it.)


	5. seonghwa and how short friends' names really were

The way to the diner wasn’t too bad.

San remembered the way so vividly from the cliff this morning, and it was kind of hard not to, but he blames it on the exhausted high he was fazed in throughout their time that made everything stick. And there was something about being alone, lit only by the bronze street lamps and the white headlights of stray cars passing him on the sidewalk every so often, that made the world seem small. There were so many things out there that San could do, but he was stuck in this tiny town until he left high school and he was kind of upset about it now. Maybe that’s why he likes Wooyoung so much - he was an outlet into the small adventures, the key to the doors that San always kept shut and locked all encased in a saccharine glossed smile, and he thinks maybe that’s why he needs him around more often.

San thinks he’s getting too attached to him.

And once the moon sinks low and illuminates the entire city with a dimmed and watchful spotlight, San reaches the parking lot to the diner, his feet slightly aching and his hair beginning to bother him as the wind caresses his face and blows into his sweater. He steps onto the white lines that made up the parking space, taking a deep breath, looking to the front door at the small handwritten sign that told everyone who wasn’t interested that they were open, knowing that Wooyoung was inside with Yeosang and he wasn’t sure how to deal with it. It had been over half an hour since he was supposed to meet him, but would Wooyoung even be here? Did he miss Yeosang’s shift? Was there really nobody in here?

He didn’t know how he was supposed to deal with all this. He felt small, and he hadn’t even talked to anyone yet.

He walks over to the window, right beside the door, and stares at the white sign again, seeing how out of place it looked against the bright lights of the inside of the diner. He remembers the last time he was here, how Wooyoung had smiled at him and made his stomach fall to where he couldn’t finish his hot chocolate, how Yeosang made him feel like one of his best friends, really, how the aura of the diner had quickly changed and he found himself talking to them in one of their living rooms, and the television was on somewhere, softly running a cartoon or an advertisement for toothpaste or something and he had practically lived with them for forever, knew their dynamics and how to truly be alive in the company of others.

It was different. San wondered if their living rooms really felt like that.

His heart begins to race once he notices someone sitting right in front of Yeosang, and he’s really tall and his hair looks nearly white in the bright lights of the diner as he tilts his head and listens to something that he was saying. There was Wooyoung, mouth open in a huge smile and San could practically hear his rain shower laugh, and Yeosang was smiling at him while the new boy was talking. 

Is this _the_ Hongjooong? The Seonghwa?

He looks at his shoes, thinking of all the scenarios that could play out once he sets foot in the diner as he stares into the dirty creases of his white stans. He had another person to worry about, to try in front of, to try and not mess things up in front of. He begins to get nervous, tugging his sweater sleeves over his clammy hands and looks up at the full moon, trying to find his courage in the milky halo it cast over his sleepy city.

_Just go inside. He’s nice!_

San blinks again, breathes in a little deeper but not too much so his ribs don’t hurt, and there’s a soft breeze that carries east, like the doldrums from the Toledo Bend Reservoir, and he realizes just how cold the night can really be once you stop to take it in. He reaches for the handle, the wind making the urge to get inside a little stronger, seeing how distracting they were for each other, and it’s not until he opens the door with a hesitant betrayal that the chilling doorbell above him rang out and stopped their conversation.

There were two pairs of eyes on him - no, three, now - and San gets apprehensive again. He felt his face begin to get hot and he knew he probably looked sick. Wooyoung looks lost when he stares at him, Yeosang looks excited, the other boy looks curious.

Typically how anyone would be, save for Wooyoung.

San stares back at him, really sees what he looked like, the nighttime shadows still painted on his skin while the lights above him features exactly what San remembered from last night, and he’s draped in an oversized black sweater and his jeans are ripped just above his right knee and San thinks black was Wooyoung’s best and worst hue because it shrouded him in mysteries and inscrutability but he loved looking at him.

He was pretty, like the paintings in the corner of the local art exhibits that no one really appreciates until they stop to stare at them. He suddenly remembers that there were people that he was supposed to be seeing, talking to and becoming a part of their home. Nobody has said anything, yet.

He decides he’d be the first.

“H-hey.” 

“Hey, San!” Yeosang throws up a hand in the air to wave at San, a cute smile on his face that reminds him of a bed of pink peonies during the spring, and San feels something in his chest that makes him want to smile right back at him, just as wide. He didn’t know why, but he wanted to smile. “You look so cute!”

He ends up smiling at him anyway.

“Thank you,” San has to look at the tile beneath his feet, hiding his grin from them, and suddenly, there’s the smell of cologne and the perfume of hot chocolates, and San looks up to see Wooyoung, having run to him after he came in.

He didn’t even notice, too wrapped up in his embarrassment to notice him. He looks up at him, runs his eyes over his face and his hair and his clothes one more time and he realizes just how much he missed Wooyoung in the short time they’ve been apart, and he feels so stupid to want to see Wooyoung all the time. 

He nearly forgot about his last name until now.

“I missed you.” Wooyoung smiles, his voice easy and charming, just like how San remembers. He places a hand on the top of San’s head, nearly perfect height to be able to do that to him, and San flushes peony underneath his touches. 

“I missed you, too.”

And it takes a lot for San to say that considering he was allergic to anything remotely affectionate, but he thinks the smile he coaxed out of Wooyoung was worth it and he would tell him he missed him a million times over if he could.

“That’s the Seonghwa I was telling you about. Our Hwa.”

For a moment, San forgot that there were two other people besides them in the diner, and that there was a new person right behind Wooyoung at the counter with Yeosang, and his heart sank for the nth time that night. He begins to wonder what this Seonghwa would be like. He was dating Yeosang, and they say opposites attract - what if Seonghwa was quiet, just like him? Did he hate to cook? Would he be mean?

San stops himself from making any more assumptions as Seonghwa glances at him, offering a small smile, and as he returns it, he thinks he might be putting too much thought into this.

“Don’t look so scared!” Wooyoung whispers, and he lightly drapes his fingers into San’s hand (more like the fingers that weren’t hidden by his sweater), and San looks at the silver rings glinting in the diner’s lights like jewels, thinks of how pretty something as simple and overlooked as Wooyoung’s hands were, and he only moves when he does, curling his fingers into his and feeling protected, just for the moment.

He can’t tell if he was being protected from Seonghwa or from himself. Wooyoung was the anchor to San’s broken wooden ship, and the waters were rough and scary and everything was unknown to him as he crashed into rocks and sank into waves, but Wooyoung was always there to keep him grounded.

In less than twenty-four hours, Wooyoung became San’s anchor when it came to doing new things.

“Hwa, this is my friend, San!” 

San holds up his free hand and waves it a little, giving him another small smile and his cheeks are pink and he knew Seonghwa could see it. He wonders if everyone in the diner could feel the heat radiating from his face tonight. 

Seonghwa simpers when he hears how excited Wooyoung was over him, and San thinks that he might have that effect on everyone he speaks to.

“Hi, San! I’m Seonghwa. My friends call me Hwa, so you can, too.”

“See? Our friends have crazy, short names.” Wooyoung tells him, lowering his voice, yet it was loud enough for Yeosang and Seonghwa to hear, and he lightly squeezes his fingers in his for emphasis. San can’t help but smile at how childish Wooyoung could be sometimes.

“Not Jongho.” Seonghwa shook his head, and Yeosang nodded his own.

“I told him that this morning,” Yeosang says, watching over him and San and Seonghwa, and there’s this demeanor about him that reminds San of age, as if Yeosang was older than he really was. 

As if Yeosang looked after them, like they were his family. San doesn't know if he would ever get it.

“Jong!” Wooyoung tries, and Yeosang shakes his head again, placing a hand on the counter and leaning his weight against it.

“No way!”

Seonghwa shakes his head once, then stands up from the stool he had sat at and stretches his back out, bending backward slightly and making a face at the sensations of it, telling San that he had been here for a long time and he thinks it’s sweet that he’d waited up here for Yeosang. San guessed he was Seonghwa’s replacement for the day in terms of extra company.

He didn’t mind at all.

“I’m gonna go, then. San’ll keep you company for now.” Seonghwa smiles nicely at him, his eyes squinting, and he kind of reminded him of daisy petals and how they glowed when you held one up to the sun. 

It seems like all of Wooyoung’s friends were the prettiest elements of the Earth and San can’t help but stare at them. He couldn’t help but stare at the rainbows in Yeosang’s eyes or Seonghwa’s daisy field smile or the galaxies in Wooyoung’s heart.

It was wonderful, being so close to such phenomenal things like that, and they didn’t even know it themselves.

“Bye, Hwa. I’ll miss you!” Wooyoung tells him, his eyebrows rising and his whole face had lit up at him, emphasizing his words and San could almost see the exclamation point above his head.

Seonghwa is flattered, it shows just as clearly as everything else he had felt up to this point that San had seen. He was transparent when it came to feelings, and San thinks that he and Wooyoung were alike when it came to stuff like that. 

You could always tell how Seonghwa was feeling. 

Seonghwa reaches out to ruffle Wooyoung’s black hair, as he scrunches his nose at the gesture. “I’ll miss you, too, little one. We’re gonna see each other tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah, but I don’t wanna go to school.”

“You gotta.”

Wooyoung pouts and takes a breath, and San knows just how bad he must feel because school was a different sort of draining and he dreaded waking up so early just to go to class, just to sit in boring lectures and fill notebooks with the words on powerpoints and stupid assignments. In fact, he didn’t know anybody who enjoyed school.

In even _more_ fact, he didn’t really know anybody.

San tries to focus on breathing normally, his heart beginning to beat in his ears as he stares at their intertwined fingers. Wooyoung really had no problem showing stuff like this, but San could feel his palms get clammy and he knew Wooyoung would notice and _god,_ hasn’t he suffered enough embarrassment for one day? San tries to target literally anything else he could stop his eyes on, and he looks up again in time to see Seonghwa lean over the diner to where Yeosang was standing, pressing his lips to his forehead and Yeosang smiles shyly, looking at the napkin dispensers and his shoes and everything else but Seonghwa and there’s a small grin peeking on his mouth.

“You’re making me blush, stupid.” Yeosang’s voice sounded just like when he first met San, cottony and fluid and loose, just like the music he heard on Wooyoung’s radio.

“If I didn’t I’d be worried,” Seonghwa says, and they seem to forget that they weren’t in their own world with anybody else around, but San can’t help but smile at them for a moment before Wooyoung pulls him out of his thoughts by tugging a bit on his fingers.

“Hey, San, what did you do when you got home?”

San glances again at Seonghwa and Yeosang, and he said something to him that makes Yeosang giggle and his cheeks are pink again and Seonghwa holds two fingers under his chin to kiss his lips this time, and San feels a little annoyed at them (he would never admit for what, exactly), but he pushes it down, smothering it within his thoughts as he remembers this morning after leaving Wooyoung.

“Uh, I...I took a shower and went to sleep.”

“Did you eat?”

Oh, yeah. He thinks that would have been a good idea to remember to do.

“N-no. I forgot.”

And he nearly cringes before Wooyoung’s eyebrows come together, and his lips part. He knew saying that out loud would worry him and he really wanted to stray away from it, but it was too late and he knew exactly what that look meant. San swallows, hears the chiming of the door and glances to the sound to see the back of Seonghwa leaving the diner, and soon it was just the three of them again, like this morning.

“Yeosang, San forgot to eat.”

Yeosang gasps softly, his eyes now worried just like Wooyoung’s and now he wants to set alarms to remember to eat, to make posters and set them all over his house.

_Jeez._

“San!”

San wants to protest, but it’s as if he really was painted black in a world full of pure white, and his stomach started with a sharp pain in the middle before emptying, filling the small silence with the sounds of hunger as he thinks about the food on the menu, and San feels his face get hot, feels his entire body erupt in sweats and he wanted nothing more than to go home now.

Literally nothing was more embarrassing than this.

Wooyoung and Yeosang glance at each other, deadpanned and knowing, and San sometimes thinks that the world likes to see him suffer sometimes by pulling things like this. Yeosang turns to leave the two of them, disappearing behind an opening that led to what San assumed was the storage, and he sighs.

“You know Yeo wouldn’t let you leave here without eating.” Wooyoung lets go of his hand before taking the same seat he’d been in when San had gotten here, San doing the same in Seonghwa’s.

He feels guilty for having Yeosang go do extra work after a day-long shift, but he knew Wooyoung was right and he should have known better than to forget to eat. He should have set a reminder or _something._ San sighs again, looking at the counter and listening to Yeosang get busy in the kitchen, pans clanking and silverware banging together that told him he was rushing a little and San wants to discover how easy it was for Yeosang to be so selfless towards someone he didn’t even know. He thinks about his mom, and his grandma before she died, too, and how they would always do things like that whenever he came home from school. She’d never let him forget to eat, just like Yeosang, and San almost finds it funny how he sees a bit of her in him. 

He sees a bit of her in Wooyoung, too sometimes, and he was sure he’d find a bit of her in Seonghwa soon and Yunho and Mingi and Jongho and Hongjoong if he’d ever get the chance to meet them.

There’s a hand on his shoulder, light, yet heavy, and it takes him out of his thoughts like running water, washing the dirt away and cleaning his head, only for now until it gets heavy again.

“Don’t feel bad, San. We care about you. You know that, right?” 

San looks at Wooyoung, sees the jewels behind his eyes that make the lights in here stand out even more, and he feels what he was going to say slip his mind and now he feels dumb. Wooyoung blinks, his head tilted slightly, and San feels that slight rush in his chest that he would get on roller coasters, or the first day of school. 

He looks at the counter.

“I-I know. We barely know each other, though.” 

“So? We’re still friends, aren’t we?”

San doesn’t really know the answer to that question, because it’s kind of an unbalanced weight in him. He doesn’t know - were they really friends? How long would it be until Wooyoung leaves him?

And Wooyoung must have heard his heart and his head and his bones all thinking out loud because he looks away from San, and he could see his eyebrows come together slightly, like when he’s thinking too hard about something, and he feels the energy in the room start to rot and _god,_ this was a bad idea. 

He doesn’t say anything, taking his hand off of San’s shoulder, and in this paused moment in time, San remembers his money from his wallet. He takes the time to pat his back pocket and pull it out, peeling it open and holding the flap away from the cash inside before taking out a five, handing it to Wooyoung and successfully shifting the attention to the cash in his hand.

“For this morning.” Is all he says. 

Wooyoung looks slightly confused as he stares at the cash, until he softens and gives San a warm smile in return. How could he have done that, when San felt so cold to him?

“It was free, remember?” 

San does remember (that he forgot), and feels dumb for the millionth time that night. 

It was something friends do - don’t charge your friends for the food you make them. San tucks the money back in his wallet sheepishly, kind of embarrassed that he did something that would catch Wooyoung’s attention like that, probably make him look weirder or something, but he thinks that it was worth it to make Wooyoung smile again and he takes that as the one good thing that came out of that situation. 

“Sorry.” 

Wooyoung smiles wider, shaking his head once and looking at his lap, San doing the same and seeing how many holes Wooyoung really had in his black jeans. There was...one, two, three in his left leg and two in his right. Wooyoung chuckles, taking a breath, before looking back at San, his gaze light.

“San, you gotta open up more.” 

San blinks at him. Open up more? When he couldn’t even order takeout over the phone or speak to his distant relatives? Never in his life will that statement connect with him. 

He doesn’t answer for a little, but he finds words in the way the lights glint off of the silver counter, the napkin dispenser less smudgy than last time he was here. 

“It’s…” He sighs, his chest tingling with the threat of letting his heart spill to him, even if it was only for a second, “It’s hard.” 

Wooyoung nods, his black hair softly dancing with the air and San thinks he knows how to make anything look lovely, anything and everything, and he looked lovely at night and in the morning and during the day and the dusks that pocket themselves within the twilights of sundown when San couldn’t see him, but he knew. 

Everyone and everything was Wooyoung’s canvas to paint in the soft acrylics of his lilypad laugh and the star shimmers of his curiosity, and San would never get over how Wooyoung would never notice. 

“I know.” 

San furrows his eyebrows at that, thinks of Wooyoung being in his shoes, and he can’t help but make a face. Wooyoung, being shy and intimidated and timid and terrified of new people? He couldn’t imagine it. There was no way Wooyoung really _knew._ He was just saying that to be nice. 

Sometimes San wished Wooyoung wasn’t so nice all the time, because now he kind of thought that maybe he really did know and San was just being mean to him and he couldn’t help but feel bad. _God,_ this was so confusing.

“No, you don’t. You’re easy to talk to. Very…” San swallows, trying to figure out how to word it in his language, “...strong, compared to someone like me.” 

He thinks of this morning and how Wooyoung just scooped him up from the cliff, as easy as counting on his fingers or remembering what he had for lunch today. Things came easy to Wooyoung, and San would never understand how he did something like that, how he was so open to talking to him, even after he tried to push away from him. Wooyoung was persistent, San knew that much, too, and he thinks it’s fitting for someone like him.

But it was never in a bad way.

“Too strong?” Wooyoung’s voice was a little quieter, and San doesn’t really know why, considering it’s just the two of them in the dining area and Yeosang was probably too preoccupied with cooking and not setting things on fire to really pay attention to them. He thinks it’s because this is an uncomfortable subject to talk about and if he lowered his voice they would have less pressure to keep the conversation going. 

“A little.”

“I’m sorry.” Wooyoung feels uneasy, but he tries not to let it show in his face as he plays with the thread in the hole above his right knee. 

San sees his eyebrows come together.

He shakes his head quickly, feeling the blush on his cheeks get deeper as he reaches out to tug on Wooyoung’s sweater, feeling his arm stop moving as he paused on playing with his jeans, and he’s looking at him, probably confused. San would be, too. He didn’t know what the hell he was talking about half the time, either.

“Don’t be. I...I need it, if we’re going to be friends.”

Wooyoung half squints, his eyes a bit dimmer, and he looks at San with a look that tells him he was curious again, but not so much anymore. It’s as if he was afraid of San’s answer. 

“How so?”

San looks over his face, letting go of his sweater and he shakes his head, his heart beginning to beat as he thinks. He wouldn’t be the one to make the first move to do anything with Wooyoung, wouldn’t invite him out, wouldn’t ask to meet his friends, wouldn’t text him first. And San knows that they’re terrible habits, but that’s just how he was for now. Wooyoung was slowly hacking at the ice he’s built up around himself, chilling his skin and maintaining his cold bones, making the slightest dents with his broken pick, but he still kept trying. 

Even when San was coldest to him, he was extraordinarily warm. 

San thinks he doesn’t deserve Wooyoung, as a stranger, as an acquaintance, as a friend, as a person. He didn’t deserve him, not really. He tried for him, and San wouldn’t know the first thing to do if it were him.

“I’m too scared.” His voice comes out in a whisper, and he begins to get flustered at how dramatic it seemed. 

The world really was out to get him and he was kind of mad about it.

“Of me?”

San nods, ever so slightly in a way that Wooyoung couldn’t really tell if he moved or not, but he drops it anyway. San was scared of him and there was absolutely nothing that he did to earn it. San was scared of many people, starting with the people at school and ending with the rest of Wooyoung’s friend group that he had yet to meet. San was the dark corners of the attic that nobody ever goes into, the vents on the ceiling and the grit in the tiles that nobody ever really paid attention to. He was there, but not really. And he hated it, all of the ignoring and pretending like he didn’t exist, but at the end of the day, he started to believe it himself.

Yeosang comes out of the kitchen with a plate smoking wisps of what San could smell was breakfast again, and he almost wants to smile when he realizes that Yeosang remembered exactly what he ordered last time. He forgets about his thoughts for a little, feeling them slowly trickle back in as Yeosang sets the plate down in front of him, trying not to let it show on his face. 

It seems he just keeps blowing things with Wooyoung.

“I hope you don’t mind that I made you the same thing as this morning. I should have gotten you a menu.” Yeosang tells him, and he almost looks a little disappointed, as if San told him it wasn’t good, but he smiles at him instead, just like he was thinking of doing. 

“Thank you, Yeosang. I, uh...I appreciate it.” San nods, and Yeosang offers him a grin in response, reaching over to the napkin dispenser and pulling out a handful for him, setting them down beside the plate.

San picked to eat the eggs first, and while he’s silent and stabbing his fork into them, Yeosang and Wooyoung start talking again. He drowns them out, not intentionally, but it was only then when he realizes that he was hungry, _actually,_ and that he probably should do a better job at feeding himself. The eggs taste good, better than this morning if he was thinking about it, probably because he had eaten then rather than today.

“You want to try a chocolate lava cake? I learned the recipe yesterday! Seonghwa said it was good this time. Like, for real good.” Yeosang is the one that catches San attention as he finishes, and his eyes are bright and entertained and if Yeosang tried a little harder it would be impossible to say no to him.

“Seonghwa tells you everything is good.” Wooyoung tells him, the small smile imprinted in his lips painted with the tainted acrylic of mischief once Yeosang’s mouth makes an “o” shape with his mouth in offense, his eyebrows coming together, and now San really _couldn’t_ say no.

“Hey! That couldn’t be farther from the truth, Jung Wooyoung.”

Wooyoung smiles, nodding. “Uh-huh.”

San swallows, tasting the remnants of the hashbrowns on his tongue as he forks the remnants of the toast on his plate, going to finish it, but wanting to save room for the cake if Yeosang really wanted to make one.

“Y-Yeo, can I try it?”

And San doesn’t know if they paused and looked at him like that because he shortened Yeosang’s name just like their friends do, or if he genuinely wanted to taste it because Seonghwa knew it wasn’t really good and Yeosang knew that he knew it wasn’t really good.

“Actually?” And Yeosang’s eyes shine blatantly in front of San without limitation and he thinks that maybe Yeosang was just as childish as Wooyoung when it came to things they loved to do. 

He loved to see it.

San nods with a smile stretched across his face that he could feel makes his whole face squish, and Yeosang’s mouth is in an open smile as he rushes into the kitchen to make San the cake.

“You just made his whole week, you know?” Wooyoung watches Yeosang leave them alone again, and San’s heart kind of sinks because he doesn’t know what Wooyoung would want to talk about with him or how deep he would color in front of him again while they’re alone.

He was unpredictable, and it frightened him.

But he feels good, knowing he was able to do something nice for Yeosang, even if it was just as minuscule as trying his lava cakes.

And to San’s not so surprise, it was good, just like everything else Yeosang makes. His breakfast was good and the water he poured for him once he remembered was good and his cake was good and San thinks Yeosang was incredible when it came to showing his heart through the way he cooks. Wooyoung was good at that, too, showcasing his heart by handing it out to San, letting him do what he wanted with it while he led them on adventures in the late hours of the night.

They were both just _good._ He liked that about them.

And after San eats until his stomach ached (he was only a little upset because he couldn’t finish the lava cake), Wooyoung has hold of his fingers again, slightly tugging on them as he pulled him down the sidewalk, an excited tune to his steps as the moon washes them in dusty ivory and shades them from the unknown of the nighttime. Neon signs from the corner store they were about to pass flashes hot pink and reminded San of silver poles and surly voices that told him the city wasn’t really as dead as he imagined when it was past one in the morning on a Saturday. The world was so full of people and things and experiences that San was sometimes afraid that he wouldn’t go through. 

He was always afraid of not having any meaning when he needed to.

But in this instance, San didn’t really worry about whether he belonged or not. He felt protected with Wooyoung, like he didn’t have to hide or do anything to make himself stand out, and he thinks that it was maybe due to the fact that Wooyoung kept looking back at him as he took him to wherever he had in mind, as if he was afraid of San getting lost, though he was holding onto him.

Speaking of…

“Woo, where are we going?”

His voice breaks the tranquil silence they’ve been in since the diner, like the ripples in moonlit ponds or the rustling of cherry blossoms in a stagnant afternoon as they fell to the ground. 

It was gentle, and a little weird.

“There’s a park near the cliff, on the other side of the beach. It’s fenced, but you can still see the water and it’s nighttime and I think you’ll like it a lot!” 

San unconsciously squeezes Wooyoung’s fingers in his, as if he didn’t want him to leave.

“Really?” Is all he asked, but he’s seen it, once. He’s been to the cliff enough times to know that, but he still asks for some reason. He thinks it’s to see Wooyoung happy to be taking him there, as if he would discover another secret with him when there was no one around to see them.

“Yeah! I’m gonna take you there!”

And San smiles, wonders if this is what it’s like to have a real friend who was interested in the world and new things and going on adventures, and him. 

San wonders once if Wooyoung was interested in him.

He throws it away once Wooyoung stops, right at the intersection that leads into the neighborhood before the cliff, struck as he looks at the stoplights above them. San’s slightly confused, but he follows his gaze anyway and watches as the traffic light alternates between red and amber flashes. He looks to the street again, realizing just how empty it was in the early hours of the morning.

Wooyoung is quiet for a moment, before he looks at San, a glint in his eye that told him he was going to have to think before he answered whatever question he was going to ask.

“You wanna lay out in the street?”

San furrows his eyebrows, looking back down at Wooyoung incredulously.

_“What?”_

“Come on!” Wooyoung swing’s their hands in between them for emphasis, like a child trying to get their parents to do something crazy. “It’s almost three in the morning. Nobody is out. Let’s watch the stars!”

Wooyoung is already stepping off of the curb and onto the dark asphalt, painted charcoal due to the hour of the day. San looks at the pothole in the middle of the intersection, then to the drains that had dead, dry leaves decorating the outside of it. The white paint from the crosswalk had been rubbed off from tires and shoe soles and too much rain, and he takes a second to admire how desolate and lonely the streets looked now. Cars run through them every day, yet, everything was so alone and San thinks it’s almost depressing how the streets were just as vacant as he was at this time.

He thinks of something else.

“W-Wooyoung, this is kind of dangerous.”

San feels just like the red and amber stop lights warning him, just like the slick of rain on the highway or the feeling of weak and rusted brakes. He should stop, he should press to Wooyoung that this was a bad idea, but the thought of spending more time with him and doing crazy things that Regular San would never even dream of was like nicotine, addictive and sweet as Wooyoung drawled smoke from San’s head, took hits from his heart and inhaled his soul.

Wooyoung was easy when it came to this.

“It’s okay. I won’t let you get run over, San.”

San swallows, lets Wooyoung unhinge their fingers as he lies down once they get to the middle, his hair blending in with the night as it splayed against the asphalt, Wooyoung with a small smile crocheted into his face as he looks at the traffic lights. San feels uneasy, looking to his left first, then glancing to his right once he sees it’s empty. 

There really was nobody here at this time of night.

“You’re not gonna let me lay by myself, right?” Wooyoung looks up at him, his sweater nearly swallowing him neck-first as San studies him, how his demeanor was as quiet as the night had been, but still as excited as the sun at the start of summer.

“Wooyoung, I’m nervous.”

“Come on, San. Live a little!” Wooyoung holds his hand out, as an invitation for San to get pulled out of his comfort zone of standing on his two feet. 

San sighs, looks at Wooyoung, then to his hand, before just lying down beside him before he thought too much about it. He takes Wooyoung’s hand and lowers it beside him, linked in the middle of the street where the dotted yellow lines were. They were crooked, but San notices that they were basically on opposite sides of the street, going in different directions but yet, managed to find a way to stay together. Holding hands with Wooyoung felt like a safety net rather than something that the two just _did,_ and it really felt like nobody existed in the world when it was just the two of them, alone together.

Wooyoung was magic in the form of wispy black hair and rubicund lips that looked beautifully upturned in a smile that San knew he was the cause of. 

They don’t talk much, and San tries to occupy himself by seeing if he could find any constellations. This wasn't exactly his perfect idea of stargazing, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. The sky was nearly empty, a void of navies and violets that stretched for miles anywhere and nowhere, and San wonders how many people are also lying in the street and watching it go by at the same time they were, how many people had telescopes and were seeing planets up close or how many astronauts were floating across the moon.

The world was so big, and San’s only complaint was not having enough time to see all of it.

“Hey,” Wooyoung is the first to speak up, breaking San’s train of thought as he listens to whatever he had to say, “remember when I said your name reminded me of the sun?” _How could he forget?_ “I think...You kind of remind me of the moon, instead.”

San lets his head roll over to look at Wooyoung, sees him staring at the sky with such awe and fondness for her that he thinks he’s almost intruding on him spending time with the world. He looks away quickly, lets his eyes burn out with the moon as he thinks about Wooyoung and when he woke up and how he was so excited putting on his clothes to come meet him and how his energy changed and he was excited in a different way being here with him in the middle of the street at the break of early morning.

“I was just thinking this afternoon that you remind me of the sun.”

Wooyoung smiles, and San sees him roll his head over to him but he’s too scared to meet his gaze. 

“Really?”

San nods, a small grin quirking at his lips from Wooyoung’s tone. “Yeah.”

Wooyoung goes back to looking at the sky, and at that moment, San hopes that he didn’t feel how clammy his hands had gotten, and he closes his eyes for a little to try and control his embarrassing self and _god,_ can he stop?

“I think...I’ll call you Moon.”

Wooyoung’s voice takes him out of his clamoring thoughts, and he blinks once he realizes what he said. 

“Moon?”

Wooyoung nods. San smiles, his eyes still trained on the sky, and he feels light, like if Wooyoung wasn’t tethering him to the ground he would float off right into space and disappear within the universe’s nooks.

“Okay. I’ll call you Woo.”

Wooyoung giggles, and San feels his shoulders move as he holds onto his hand, his voice soft, like ripples in a lazy river or the heat waves that you see on the street in the dead afternoon. 

And it’s silent again. 

San was listening to himself - to his breathing, to his heart that unpredictably beat when he thinks of certain places and certain people, to his neck when he tilted his head to the side once, then back over again. He thinks his neck shouldn’t really be making noise like that. 

Hm.

It doesn’t take long, but San and Wooyoung spend enough time in the street for San to begin to get tired, nearly falling asleep behind his eyelids as the moon warmed over him like a heat lamp, and he didn’t feel so alone anymore. Everything outside was watching over them, the moon, the stars, the city lights and the invasive street lamps that lined the roads. He felt safe, being exposed and vulnerable in the middle of the street. 

There he goes, thinking about stuff like this and about Wooyoung. 

His heart picks up, and he’s kind of annoyed when he’s pulled out of his drowsy hammock. He’s not so sleepy anymore. He opens his eyes again after what seemed like years, squinting in the light of the moon even though it was dark out. He hasn’t heard from Wooyoung, either, and he thinks that maybe he’d fallen asleep for real. It’s only now when he’s sensitive from the need for more sleep that he feels the rocks and gravel digging into his back, stabbing at the base of his head and pressing into the back of his hand.

He grimaces, knowing that there’d be ugly indents in his skin. San shifts, lets go of Wooyoung’s hand for a moment so that he could lay on his side, cushioning his face with his arm. He looks at Wooyoung, looks at his side profile and admires his pretty button nose, the way the moon highlights his skin, the way his chest rises and falls and the way he looks so serene, as if outlined in a heavenly ivory glow. The poster child for equanimity, that’s exactly what he looked like.

That puts San at ease.

“Hey, San?”

And San’s heart beats again because he thinks he’s going to tell him to stop staring at him and he’d be embarrassed until next month about it. His eyes were closed, though, maybe he couldn’t really see him and San was overthinking for nothing.

He flushes anyway.

“Y-yeah?”

“You said that people pick on you at school, right?”

San blinks, and his heart is shadowed in the dread of going back to school on Monday, having to wake up just to sit in classes and get bullied within the five minutes it takes to get to school. He never ate lunch with anyone, hiding out in the library or by the trees outside of the front gate to avoid attention and people altogether. 

“Sometimes. It depends if he’s in the mood.” San shrugs, not really upset about the bullying part rather than the preparation for it. 

It was annoying. 

“What does that mean?” Wooyoung rolls his head to the side to look at him again, and San could see his eyebrows come together in his peripherals as his lips were parted, listening. 

He was worried about him again. There’s an itch of irritation lining his spine and he wants to leave again, go isolate himself back at home and maybe miss Monday. 

“There’s just one boy. The girls in my classes talk about me sometimes. They laugh. Whatever. It happens. It’s not forever, I guess.” San shrugs, nearly winces as the clouds mirror his worst memories of school and the stinging pain that brought crimson blood in the form of punches and kicks from that stupid boy. 

He couldn’t wait to leave. He was doing everything he could in his schedule for when the time for applications came around. 

“That guy beats you?” 

“Not all the time. Only sometimes, if he’s mad or if I look stupid that day, or whatever. It’s just regular, cliche high school bullying shit. It’s not forever.” San knows this, but it still makes him uncomfortable and worried to go into school every day with the constant concern to look over his shoulder. He gets in and out very quickly, not leaving his home to walk to class until the late bell was about to ring and taking different routes to get there. 

It was just regular high school shit. It’ll pass. 

San hoped it would pass quickly.

“Why do they bully you?” Wooyoung doesn’t think anyone should bully San, but he also understood that it happened to everyone at some point and he was just lucky enough to get it when he was young enough to forget about most of it now.

“I’m quiet and don’t talk. People think I’m weird. I’m not cool like the guys my age. I don’t go to parties or hook up with girls or wear nice jewelry or the newest clothes. I don’t have any friends at school. I eat lunch alone. There are many reasons why.”

“Okay, but you don’t deserve it.” Wooyoung almost wants to get upset with San for being so calm about it, as if it really was an everyday thing that happened, like turning in homework or sitting down at your desk.

San shrugs again. 

“I think...you’re too good for them.” Wooyoung turns his head to look at San, bringing his hands into the middle of his stomach and resting them there. “You’re very cool to look at.”

“Cool to look at?” San wants to laugh at that.

Wooyoung nods. “Yeah. When I first saw you, I thought you were cool. Too cool to hang out with someone like me. But now, I think that we’re good for each other. You’re too cool and I’m your lame friend who gets too excited about things. You’re quiet and I’m loud. You’re refined and I’m not. I wanted to be your friend when I saw you at that cliff, but I was scared of you. That you wouldn’t like me, you know?” 

San listens, tries to put himself in Wooyoung’s shoes. Him being too cool for Wooyoung? Him being too intimidating? 

He could never imagine. 

“I think that’s what it is.” Wooyoung says, “People are too afraid to talk to you. So they bully you. Those jerks don’t deserve someone like you.” 

San looks at Wooyoung this time, feels the need to meet his eyes before anything else. He doesn’t know what it is, but he’s drawn to him again, his voice like a beam through his foggy dusk, and his heart warms and he feels somewhat less bad about going to school on Monday. 

He felt less bad about everything today.

“Wooyoung-”

There’s a sound that reminds San of gravel running downhill, a soft whirring, and San looks at Wooyoung questioningly before the thought finally settles in. He gasps softly and pushes himself off of the ground, standing up quickly. He pulls Wooyoung up once he sits up, seeing the headlights coming from far down the street, dimmer than usual and going a little slower.

No, it was going faster. _Very fast._

San tugs Wooyoung towards the curb, his legs feeling like jelly as he haphazardly runs out of the way, a sting of adrenaline coursing through his blood and pooling in his head. San’s heart thumps in his chest, panic muting his hearing and fright numbing his hands as he drags Wooyoung to the curb, nearly tripping over it as the car speeds behind them, honking at them for being in the street and it blares in San’s ears, his face getting hot from the scare. 

“Holy _shit.”_ San watches the car turn at the light down the street, his eyes watery and his heart still heavy in his chest, clutching onto Wooyoung’s hand as if he’d get hit by the car anyway if he didn’t. 

He could barely breathe. 

“I think…” Wooyoung breathes out, running his free hand through his black hair, watching the end of the street and waiting for the car to make another appearance. “I think that’s enough street time for now.”

“Y-yeah. It’s late. Holy shit.”

“How late?”

San pulls out his phone from his back pocket, expecting it to be not so late considering all they did was go into Yeosang’s diner and lay in the street today. His phone lights up at the motion of him holding it up to his face, his eyes stinging into his skull at the brightness. He glances at the time through squinted eyes, sees that it’s almost four in the morning, and that it’s also been twenty-four hours since he’s met Wooyoung and he feels like he’s known him for lifetimes. 

He was something else. 

“I’ll take you home?” 

San wants to tell him no again, but the thought of not seeing Wooyoung anymore after today was looming and he wanted to spend more time with him than the world allotted. 

So he tells him _yes, please. Just please don’t laugh at my house._

And Wooyoung calls him silly for thinking that he’d ever judge him for anything. 

San warms.

~☾~

By the time San and Wooyoung get there, the sky is encased in an unforgiving black and the clouds moved away from each other, away from the city and to somewhere more deserving, as if the world was splitting in half on one of its angriest days and the two of them were the cause of it.

It was empty, and stars littered the atmosphere like paint splatter, like they were created by the idlest hands, scattered and filling up the emptiness of the world for a few more hours. San’s leaning against the window of Wooyoung’s car, feeling the vibrations of the road against the cold glass, letting it seep into his hair and rattle his worries out.

Wooyoung’s car was nice. Wooyoung was even nicer for taking him home so late.

“This one.” San lazily brings up a finger to point at the house Wooyoung was pulling up at, the grass beginning to grow a little longer than he preferred and the shingles on the corner of the roof had already fallen down from when he last saw him this morning.

San wants to cringe for him.

“Hey, we live close. I live right down the street, past the park.” Wooyoung has a tired smile on his face as he shifts the gear in park, slumping against his seat as he lazily rolled his head to look at San.

“Really?”

Wooyoung nods, and then he stops, silent, and San doesn’t know if it’s because he’s quietly thinking about what else to say about his house or if it’s because he genuinely didn’t care enough about it to say something. San doesn’t wait for him to unlock the doors, instead pulls up the lock and opens the door.

“Well, thank you for the ride. I appreciate you.” San says softly, the stale remnants of nervousness on his shoulders as he steps out of the car and shuts the door. Maybe if he gets to his house fast enough, Wooyoung wouldn’t remember it as much.

“Hey, San?” San stops, right in the middle of his lawn, and swallows all of his embarrassment and pride and humility as the moon watched him bleed. 

_Come on, Woo._

“How come you didn’t call me a cool name? Why just Woo?”

The question hits San a little harder than he expected it to. He looks at his beat-up shoes to think, spotting a dandelion within the patch of weeds by the side of his foot and reminds himself to blow it out before he gets inside. 

He picks it up anyway, just so he wouldn’t forget.

“You said our friends have really short names, right?”

That’s all he says, but it was enough for Wooyoung to understand exactly what San meant and he smiles like an idiot in his car, blushing and looking at the radio, trying to think of what to say next. San sees him, remembers how much of a loving person Wooyoung was and expected this same exact reaction from him, and he can’t help but beam at him. 

From something as simple as saying they were friends.

San turns away to get into his house, Wooyoung falling in love with his dimpled smile for the thousandth time in the space that he’s known San, wanting to be the cause for his waterfall grins all the time. 

“Goodnight, Moon.” He calls, his voice melting through the air as San walks away, brushed over by the navy ruse of another nightfall.

San stops for a moment, before taking another step in the grass and hearing it crunch under his feet, so fragile, yet sturdy in growing again and he wonders how long it’ll take for him to do the same. He brings a hand up to wave at Wooyoung from behind him, opening his unlocked door (because he figured if he had anything to really steal, he’d bring it with him) and blowing the dandelion away, watching it float away, nearly invisible in light the moon offered.

San smiles one more time, and he wonders how many he’d done between now and when he was six.

“See ya, Woo.”


	6. the groupchat and how san's been talked about

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here is the groupchat 
> 
> it has a little more crackheadity in it i wrote everything at three am in the dark and very similar to my groupchat i promise im not weird
> 
> feel free to skip if youd rather not read it! 
> 
> enjoy!
> 
> UPDATE AS OF 3.26: sometimes my brain glitches and i forget im writing a high school au and not a college one,,, mingi and yu do not share a flat, i lied they’re all going to yunhos!

**yeosnag:** _WOOYOUNGGG HOWS MY BABY_

 **hwa:** _im okay im right next to u_

 **hongjoongie:** _repulsive_

 **gi:** _shut up het_

 **hongjoongie:** _HEY_

 **hwa:** _imagine being a het,,,,_

 **yeosnag:** _wait yall r gay?? ew_

 **gi:** _yes but hongjoong is not_

 **gi:** _instead he’s just stinky_

 **hongjoongie:** _hey jongho’s straight too!!!_

 **yeosnag:** _no he aint lmao_

 **hwa:** _bitch u did not SEE him at aisha’s last week_

 **gi:** _baby had one (1) long island iced tea and popped off in the middle of the floor!! as he should_

 **hwa:** _dont forget ab the multiple men we found him with when we were about to leave_

 **gi:** _PLS WE ONLY FOUND HIM WITH ONEDFFJDFMDFS_

 **hongjoongie:** _stop bullying me or i swear to god_

 **hongjoongie:** _i’ll literally cry at u >:| _

**gi:** _can we go back to the subject pls i was in the middle of cuddling yunho!_

 **jong:** _OMG HWA MINGI YEO PLS STOP IM EMBARRASSED_

 **jong:** _anyways!!! enough about drunk jongho!! back to san!!!_

 **hwa:** _gi tell yunho to come into the gc!!!_

 **yeosnag:** _SANNIE_

 **gi:** _,,,, WHO_

 **yuyu:** _:0_

 **yuyu:** _SANNIE (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧_

 **yeosnag:** _i absolutely love him :(((_

 **hwa:** _he is very cute_

 **yeosnag:** _he’s so shy! and 4 what!_

 **yuyu:** _yeah we don’t bite!_

 **gi:** _yes u fukkin do_

 **jong:** _WHO IS SANNIE_

 **yuyu:** _i havent even met him yet_

 **yuyu:** _BUT HE MAKES ME SO ＼(^-^)／_

 **gi:** _AYO ADD HIM TO THE GC_

 **yeosnag:** _absolutely not!!!_

**_hello_ **

**yeosnag:** _WOOOOO HOWS SANNIEEEEE_

**_idk_ **

**_i think i miss him though_ **

**_i think i might be a little too clingy ●︿●_ **

**gi** : _i think u might b in love w him i think_

 **yeosnag:** _duh_

 **yuyu:** _SANNIEEEE <333 _

**jong:** _y is yunho more in love w san than woo is in love w san_

 **gi** : _good question_

**_I BARELY KNOW HIM_ **

**jong:** _hey u dont have to be friends w someone to like them!_

 **yuyu:** _me and mingi didnt even know each other’s last names but here we are_

 **gi:** _here i am in love w ur stupid ass_

 **yuyu:** _yeah u better b in love w my ass_

 **hongjoongie:** _im SICK_

 **hwa:** _yunho i’d like u to reread what u just typed and sent and ask urself why u would do such a thing_

 **gi:** _seongjoong homophobe send tweet_

 **jong:** _we would definitely scare san away_

 **hongjoongie:** _plus u cant just b letting anyone in here!_

 **gi:** _yeah dis a bad bitches only zone_

 **yuyu:** _san would fit right in add him coward!!!!!_

 **yuyu:** _WE WANT SAN >:| _

**_NO_ **

**_he’s so shy!!!!_ **

**_he would b scared_ **

**_he seems to like hwa and yeosang_ **

**_he was telling me how much he liked u guys the other day!_ **

**yeosnag:** _AWE MY BABY!!! I LOVE HIM SO MUCH WTF_

 **hwa:** _:0 san??? loves ME??? stop playin_

 **gi:** _wait u saw him again after the diner on saturday?_

**_no i texted him_ **

**_i saw him after school today_**

**_he didn’t see me tho_ **

**_i was too scared to say hi so i just watched him turn the corner and go into his house like a stupidhead_ **

**jong:** _wait wtf day is it_

 **jong:** _it was saturday like three minutes ago_

 **yuyu:** _sweet child it’s four fifty-three pee em on a monday evening_

 **jong:** _ugh feels like thursday_

 **gi:** _not 4 nothing but thursday is probably THE WORST day of the week_

 **hongjoongie:** _yeah whoever made a calender and thought “lets put a thursdsay in this bitch” should have been shot_

 **jong:** _DFHGJKDF_

 **jong:** _JOONG U CANT SAY THAT_

 **hongjoongie:** _I SAID WHAT I SAID_

 **hongjoongie:** _FUCK THURSDAYS!!_

 **yuyu:** _wait omg mingi we have to go to the store before it closes_

 **gi:** _my love what could u possibly want from the store at 453pm_

 **yuyu:** _,,,,,, gushers (◕︵◕)_

 **hongjoongie:** _a child_

 **yeosnag:** _well FUCK mingi go take him to the store before it closes!!!!!_

 **gi:** _omg okay goodbye guys me and yunho will be back_

 **gi:** _and jongho do ur homework!!!_

 **jong:** _but moooooommmmm_

 **hongjoongie:** _hehe_

 **yeosnag:** _sometimes i find it funny how we all treat jongho like a baby but he could fold our asses like clean laundry if he really wanted to_

**_after he broke that watermelon,,,,,_ **

**jong:** _yeah im scary dont mess with me!! >:| _

**gi:** _isnt jongho so cute_

 **hwa:** _yeth_

 **yeosnag:** _joongie are u gonna b at school tomorrow_

 **hongjoongie:** _unfortunately_

 **hongjoongie:** _not to b dramatic but i think i’d rather cut off my left big toe than go to school tomorrow_

**_eye-_ **

**_at least we can all see each other right!_ **

**yeosnag:** _yeah but not san :(((_

 **jong:** _or jongho!!!_

 **yeosnag:** _omg or jongho!!!_

 **yeosnag:** _where does san even go??_

 **hongjoongie:** _could u imagine he goes to our school and we see him everyday but we dont know what he looks like so we cant even b like hey! san!_

**_apparently he goes to school with jongho_ **

**_it’s the one right next to ours_ **

**gi:** _the school 4 smart bitches_

 **gi:** _exactly y we dont go there :|_

 **hongjoongie:** _deadass cannot focus for more than seven minutes at a time_

 **jong:** _he goes to carter??? imma look in the yearbook and get him_

**_GUYSSS WHAT SHOULD I DO ABOUT SANNN_ **

**yuyu:** _there’s nothing 2 Do rlly_

 **yuyu:** _he was invented like three days ago u cant do much rn_

 **yuyu:** _just gotta ease into him_

 **yuyu:** _EASE INTO HIM AS IN LIKE RELATIONSHIP WISE_

 **yuyu:** _NOT THE OTHER THING_

 **yuyu:** _JEBDISNSKSK_

 **yuyu:** _aw man_

 **yeosnag:** _WHOA YUNHO_

 **hongjoongie:** _u ought to be ashamed of urself!_

 **hwa:** _disCOSTANG_

 **jong:** _go sit in the corner and think about the crime u have just committed_

 **yuyu:** _(╥﹏╥)_

 **jong:** _he should definitely wait before doing the nasty_

 **gi:** _bold of u to say then when just last week at aishas you,,,,,,,_

 **gi:** _u know what,,,, it’s not my business_

 **jong:** _song mingi will u shut the cool fuck up i will literally split ur head like an apple_

 **hwa:** _eye—_

 **yeosnag:** _i want chicken_

 **hwa:** _will cook 4 u_

**_omg wait i want hwa’s chicken :((_ **

**hwa:** _will bring you some 4 lunch tomorrow <333 _

**hongjoongie:** _WHEN ARE WE GONNA MEET SAN_

 **hongjoongie:** _I WANNA SEE SAN!!_

 **yuyu:** _YEAH ME TOO_

 **yuyu:** _SANNIEEEE (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧_

 **gi:** _i dont_

 **jong:** _:0_

 **jong:** _cancelled_

 **yuyu:** _mingi i will eat u take that back_

 **gi:** _ok i take it back but what if he doesnt like me!_

 **hongjoongie:** _impossible_

 **yeosnag:** _imagine not loving mingi im literally so glad i cant relate_

**_yeah! mingi’s HOT_ **

**gi:** _:0_

 **gi:** _stop playin ill kiss u on yo 4head_

 **yuyu:** _i Think we should all just,,, kiss mingi_

 **hwa:** _i think we should all kiss mingi and then kiss san_

 **yeosnag:** _and then kiss wooyoung_

**_i think we should all just kiss jongho_ **

**jong:** _i agree i think we should all kiss_

 **yeosnag:** _WOOYOUNG SEE IF SAN WANTS TO HANG OUT WITH US_

 **gi:** _HES GONNA HATE ME IM SCARED_

**_BRUH IM SCARED TO TEXT HIM_ **

**gi:** _u only live once in this bitch just do it!!_

**_what do i even say???_ **

**_hey san my friends r in love with u do u mind hanging w us on saturday_ **

**_hey moon my gc wants to meet u i know u get nervous around new people but it’s only 6 strangers no biggie_ **

**_BYEEEE_ **

**yeosnag:** _hey im not a stranger :(((_

 **jong:** _so we just not gonna acknowledge that wooyoung has a nickname for san already_

 **yuyu:** _U CALL HIM MOON????_

 **yuyu:** _thats the cutest thing i’ve ever seen_

 **yuyu:** _omg_

 **yuyu:** _(╥_╥)_

 **hongjoongie:** _aweeee wooyoungggg_

 **hwa:** _MOON???? u have GOT to be kidding me_

 **hwa:** _just say u have a crush on him and gO_

 **yuyu:** _so crazy how we all barely know san but,,, r in love w him_

 **yeosnag:** _WOOYOUNG ASKKKK_

**_okok_ **

**_im sending text now_ **

**_palms sweaty_ **

**_nervous_ **

**_o(╥﹏╥)o_ **

**jong:** _omg bitch i found him_

 **jong:** _looking in the yearbook_

 **jong:** _he’s in yalls grade what a grandpa_

 **jong:** _[view image]_

 **yuyu:** _OH MY GODDDD_

 **yuyu:** _OUR BABY IS SO ADORABLE_

 **yuyu:** _tears coming out,,, cant see_

 **yuyu:** _ <333 _

**yeosnag:** _holy shit_

 **yeosnag:** _i,,,, my self esteem_

 **gi:** _:0_

 **gi:** _hes gonna punch me in the face and push me to the ground and call me an ugly loser_

 **jong:** _hes so cute i wanna s q u i s h_

 **hongjoongie:** _ADD HIM TO THE CHAT I WANNA TELL HIM HOW CUTE HE IS_

 **hongjoongie:** _LOOK AT HIM!!!! SO CUTE!!! AWHENSIDND_

 **gi:** _hongjoong big gay_

 **hongjoongie:** _shut up ur smelly_

 **jong:** _LOOK HERES ANOTHER OF HIM HE GOT INTERVIEWED BY THE YEARBOOK STAFF_

 **jong:** _[view image]_

 **yeosnag:** _jongho fbi_

 **hongjoongie:** _guys i think i might b gay 4 san_

**_eye,,,_ **

**_man so am i_ **

**yuyu:** _imagine_

 **gi:** _“the earth is beautiful. i love when the stars come out at night and i think space would be even prettier” ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING MEEEEE_

 **hwa:** _omg_

 **hwa:** _im literally gonna cry_

 **gi:** _what if we all plant him a flower and make a bouquet for him and give it to him_

 **hwa:** _mingi w a good idea? incredible_

 **gi:** _full of surprises as usual baybeeeee_

**_guys he fuckin said yes_ **

**_saturday night_ **

**_where do u wanna hang_ **

**_omg_ **

**_guys pls dont scare him away_ **

**gi:** _said yes to what??_

 **gi:** _OH_

 **yuyu:** _SANNIEEE_

 **yuyu:** _u guys can come to my house!_

 **yuyu:** _the rents are out for the weekend and mingi’s sleeping over to keep me company uwu_

 **yuyu:** _THE MORE T_ _HE MERRIER (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ_

 **gi:** _babe but that means we have to clean up :(((_

 **yuyu:** _its okay we clean and then we watch movie marathon_

 **gi:** _and then we kiss!_

 **yuyu:** _ok we kiss after_

 **gi:** _okay don’t forget!!_

 **jong:** _what in the fuck wrong with yall_

 **hongjoongie:** _theyre in love jongho we wouldnt understand_

 **yuyu:** _jongho dont u have a bedtime_

 **jong:** _dont u have weak knees u tall bitch_

**_omg_ **

**yuyu:** _aight im pulling up to kick ur ass_

 **gi:** _will also pull up for moral support_

 **hwa:** _will pull up w leftover chicken for u to eat after u get ur ass kicked_

 **yeosnag:** _will pull up with first aid_

**_will pull up with my love and support for whoever wins woohoo! c:_ **

**jong:** _my mother would nEVER let u in_

 **yuyu:** _ur mom literally loves me_

 **hongjoongie:** _yunho would beat ya mamas ass too_

**_JDXOSJDJS_ **

**gi:** _yu would definitely beat his moms ass then feel bad afterwards and then go turn himself in to the police_

 **yeosnag:** _no i feel like yunho would let jonghos mom beat HIS ass_

 **hwa:** _no he’d be like “with all due respect ma’am” and THEN beat her ass_

 **jong:** _STOP TALKING ABOUT BEATING MY MOM UP_

 **jong:** _im going to bed goodnight losers_

 **jong:** _i better see san’s cute ass face tomorrow >:| _

**jong:** _omg if i do i have to act like i dont know him_

 **jong:** _i better NOT see san’s cute ass face tomorrow >:| _

**yeosnag:** _we better see san’s cute ass face on saturday_

 **hongjoongie:** _we better see san’s cute ass_

 **hwa:** _u just wanna see san’s ass_

 **hongjoongie:** _NO I DONT_

 **yeosnag:** _lies_

 **gi:** _joong u literally have a crush on san_

 **hongjoongie:** _will u like,,, shut up pls_

 **hongjoongie:** _i dont know him_

 **hongjoongie:** _plus im not a homo_

 **gi:** _but ur lowercase texts say otherwise_

 **hongjoongie:** _im so glad i see u tomorrow so i could m u r d e r you in the hallway_

 **gi:** _i’ll pay u a dollar if u stab me_

 **hongjoongie:** _just a dollar??_

 **gi:** _one dollar and a walmart giftcard with 72 cents on it_

 **hongjoongie:** _now u know i cant pass that up_

 **yuyu:** _no! dont stab mingi pls (◕︵◕)_

 **hongjoongie:** _well yu when u say it like that_

 **hongjoongie:** _i’ll stab u too_

 **yuyu:** _NOOO_


	7. the cliff and how san hates to love it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry the endings of these chapters are always so w e i r d but i hope u like this one anyway! this ones a little more angsty but i promise things with get lighter later! sans about to meet the gang so yall know what that means
> 
> enjoy!
> 
> p.p.s. I HOPE YALL ARE CELEBRATING WITH YUNHO TODAY! <333

The death of a parent is probably the worst thing a child can go through.

A child, who could barely even pay attention in class sometimes, who stumbled as he ran to his friends to play with them in the sandbox, who thought the flowers in the backyard were the prettiest thing he’s ever seen, who liked to wear red overalls and danced to the music the kid’s channel would play during lunch. He was so bright-eyed, so talkative, so happy, as if the sun had come down to earth just to protect his fragile heart in her light, shielded him from the storms of growing up and having to worry about anything at all, letting him be a kid for as long as she could.

Eventually, all lights dim out. For San, it happened too soon. 

He didn’t understand when she wouldn’t hold his hand anymore, when he was told, when he saw her in the ground buried in flowers. Such big and pretty flowers to accompany such a pretty woman; he remembers how vibrant the colors were. No matter how much he cried that day to his dad, no matter how much he slept in her room under her covers, no matter how much he waited for her to get back when he couldn’t sleep through the night, he always remembered how lively the flowers were while everything else was dying. 

He hated them. 

The one thing he once thought was so beautiful, had become ugly, tagged with the unrelenting fact that she was gone, encased in the plastic pollution of him having to be alone, and he had to stop waiting up for her to return to him with all the flowers she had left with. 

It was hard to think about flowers these days, and San struggled when it rained, when it shone, when it was cloudy or even when it snowed. He knew all flowers grew, all flowers wilted and all flowers were given to others as a sign of love and appreciation, life and new beginnings. But the only flowers he’d known were rotten, soft-stemmed, and all the signs in the world of dying. Death, in its purest form, where the stems that held up fragile souls, watered by emotions and flourishing in misfortune.

_All flowers wilted._

San was always wilting, in the morning when he woke up from his nightmares of her, as he was brushing his teeth and looking at all of his flaws in the mirror, as he was eating breakfast and found the fondest memories of her in his pancakes, as he was crossing the street to go to school and watched the cars pass by him, as he got his lip split by his classmate in the hallway, as he crossed the street again to get back home after letting another car pass, and as he sat on the cliff and cried into the sky. 

His most favorite sunflowers, most favorite petunias and hibiscuses, were wilting and he hated everything that they had become as they wrapped their vines around his heart, constricting and bleeding and so _fucking rotten_. 

Today, he decided to leave his home again, feeling the flowers grow in his walls and their leaves under his mattress when he woke up crying, making his way to the cliff as he defrosted his cold soul in the afternoon swelter.

He watches the waves go by, his tired, puffy eyes looking over the waves splashed emerald in the dimming light of the sky, purples and oranges above him marbling into the last bits of the day and San sometimes wished he could go with it, turn into stars and float past the clouds into the umbra of space, color the clouds and speckle the night in his most favorite constellations. Just to let himself go without worrying the people back home. 

But really, who was there to worry? 

San comes up short for a moment, but it’s only when he’s staring at the empty spaces around him that he doesn’t, and a smile of diamond flashes through his head before he looks into the water again. 

San was always wondering where his mom was now. He wonders if she’s alone. He wonders if she took herself into the dandelions in the front yard that he likes to blow out or the fish that swim in the bottom of the ocean. He likes to think that she had planted herself into the sun, that he was being watched over, even when the moon had been out at night or the clouds had covered her when it rained. Thinking like this made him feel lighter, like he was floating almost, and he feels better at the idea that she was the one behind all the sunny days he loved to sit outside in, that she was the reason why baby birds left nests to grow up, and how the sky turns to acrylic when she was going to rest.

San brings one hand up, holds it up in front of his face, feeling the slight warmth of the sun on the palm of his hand as he’s shaded and vulnerable in the ochre flames. He shades one eye, then moves his hand over to the next, basking in the coldness of his skin, and he realizes just how powerful the sun could really be. 

He thinks of her again, of the days he would spend with her, never once thinking that a simple drive out to the supermarket would be their last. He holds onto her as he keeps his hand in front of him, feeling his nose begin to prickle, and from his right eye, he feels a tear well up and fall, and he thinks that it was so easy to cry out here, so easy to be sad with the world, when this was the only place he would come to protect himself. 

Being out here was surreal in the most familiar way.

“I miss you.” 

He lets it slip, just this once, as he watches his hand dance in the golden sheen of the sunset, the clouds behind it melding together in a puddle of candle wax and he thinks that maybe he _could_ find a pretty place in such a pretty world. Maybe, he did belong here, with his mother and his Wooyoung and his Yeosang and his Seonghwa. They were like puzzle pieces, Wooyoung, Seonghwa, and Yeosang already making up three-eighths of the picture, San trying to fit himself in somewhere. 

But he knew, eventually, they’d complete it. Wooyoung would find a way to change his pieces and fit San in to complete him.

Maybe he didn’t want to get rid of Wooyoung anymore. Maybe, Wooyoung would be alright for him. He smiles lightly at the remembrance of him, placing him in the file folders of the memories he would never want to forget. There were many of them, occupied by his mother and his childhood friends, while his new ones were settling themselves in. 

He breathes. For the first time today, he’s cleared. He doesn’t know what to do with himself, but he keeps his hand up and he hopes his mother sees that she’s calmed him, even when she wasn’t sitting here with him.

“I knew I’d find you out here.”

San stares into his hand, reliving the last time he had been on his own at this cliff, the last time he’d spoken to him while he sat here, thinking. He was scared of him, back then. But hearing him now, felt like warm sheets on Sunday mornings, like the sunset had taken itself into his throat and he spoke nothing but wavering ponds and the most colorful petals. He wasn’t bothered by someone else being here, like he normally would.

He was always making exceptions for Jung Wooyoung.

“Always,” San tells him, feeling him take a seat behind him on the cliff, bringing his legs up to his chest, and San thinks it’s because he’s frightened of falling off. 

San didn’t mind letting his legs hand off the edge so much.

“You thinking?” San doesn’t look at him, but he could tell he was staring at him, something he normally does when he’s trying to gauge how San’s feeling.

He gives him a nod, putting his hand down and letting his eyes wander below to the waves again. In the amber blaze, he wonders where the ocean ends. Did the ocean even end? There were so many things he wondered about, the ocean being at the top of his list, and how many different ways to tie your shoes at his last. No, how to show someone you love them, that’s his last.

He thinks he won’t ever have to worry about that one as much anymore.

“Did you come to think, too?” San asks, and he thinks it’s stupid coming out of his mouth, but he knew Wooyoung wouldn’t judge him, and he thinks he’s protected in his words and his embarrassment flatlined when it came to anything related to him.

“No. I was gonna go take some pictures today, but...I wanted to hang out with you. It’s boring at home. We have school tomorrow but…” Wooyoung shrugs, even though San can’t see him, and he colors in the fact that Wooyoung had been thinking of him. 

His heart feels like it’s growing.

“We could.” San nods his head once, looking at his hands and how the sun held them in her golden fingers, how the wind swept over his clothes and made his sleeves ruffle, of how the clouds mirrored how he was feeling and he thinks that it was good for him to be alone today. “You like taking photos?”

San falls back a little when he feels Wooyoung move a bit under his weight, and he smiles when Wooyoung does the same, telling him that Wooyoung intended to stay here for a while. They balanced each other out in more ways than one and San feels like he could fall asleep under the sky this afternoon as he leans back on him. He shuts his eyes anyway, looking up a bit at the sky, feeling the sun warm his throat this time, and he wants to smile for some reason, a reason that he had the key to, but was too afraid of the truth. 

Wooyoung giggles, like porcelain wind chimes gamboling in the cozy breezes in the heart of summer, and San does smile this time, shaking his head slightly at how easy it was for Wooyoung to change his course of pace. He feels his black hair against the back of his neck, feels his baggy clothes against his body, feels his tranquility and chaos and everything in between in the rise and fall of his shoulders as they breathed. 

It was easy, breathing. San thinks there should be more easy things to do in the world, thinks it should be easy to figure out math problems and easy to know who you were in love with. He didn’t know how scary that was, if it even _was._ He thinks of Wooyoung and how easy it was for him to love things, everything and everyone, how easy it was for him to open up and say what was on his mind. He assumed Wooyoung didn’t know how hard it was to know who he was in love with. 

He decided he wasn’t going to ask him anytime soon. 

“Yeah. I want to study photography in college. I love to, uh…” Wooyoung begins to deteriorate once he thinks San probably thinks he’s weird, but he keeps going after finding his thoughts in his beat-up sneakers. “I love to take photos.”

San thought it suited him perfectly. And when he tells Wooyoung that, he wishes he could see how big he smiled for him.

“What did you...what did you do today?” San asks first, his voice breaking through them like a silver needle through tissue paper, but it wasn’t annoying and it wasn’t bothering and Wooyoung liked to hear San’s voice any time (he also thought it was nice of San to make more effort to start conversations, but he could tell he was having a hard time and he wanted to tell him how good he was doing, but he never does). 

“I went to class. Ate chicken for lunch. Seonghwa made it, it was good!” Wooyoung tells him, and San smiles at how excited he was for his friends and everything else he encountered, and while he’s staring into the darkness of himself while the sun shone and lit them up like phantoms, he gets a little jealous. 

How was it so effortless to love, so effortless to find excitement and happiness in such minuscule things? He would never get it. 

“Seonghwa cooks?” 

Wooyoung nods. “He’s very good, too. Except he wants to study finance and business. He doesn’t wanna be a cook like Yeosang.” 

“Yeo...he’s also very good.”

Wooyoung nods again, and San feels his cheeks rise as he grins softly. 

“Are you still going to hang out with us this weekend?” 

San’s heart falls at the thought of meeting new people, but he gets giddy nonetheless to meet Wooyoung’s friends. He pictures Mingi and Yunho to be tall, one with light hair and the other with hair as dark as Wooyoung’s. Maybe Hongjoong would be tall, too. He thinks that Jongho would have a high voice, maybe as calm as Seonghwa or as excited as Wooyoung. He thinks Mingi would be cute, too, because he likes flowers a lot. Should he bring Mingi a flower? 

He doesn’t know if he should be feeling this nervous already.

“Moon? You still with me?”

San nods, swallowing and finding composure in the dark. “Yeah. I’m still coming.”

Wooyoung doesn’t say much anymore, and San feels a little strange at the silence now considering Wooyoung would always find a way to take up so much of it. San decides that he would be the one to fill it first.

“You’re quiet,” San tells him, soft and mixed in with the doldrums from the sea as the sun hummed across the sky and they buzzed in its incandescence.

“Figured you’d want the peace.”

San shakes his head. “No. Too quiet.”

“Okay.” Wooyoung swallows, looking up at the topaz sky and finding his thoughts in the way the clouds streak over the stars, like pulled cotton, thin and transparent, but they were so prominently there and he thinks it looks lovely against the gradient the sunset brought. “What did you dream about?”

San opens his eyes quickly, trying to think. Sometimes he regrets opening his mouth. And he knew he didn’t have to answer, that Wooyoung wouldn’t be upset if he stayed quiet or asked to talk about something else, but he felt that leaving him hanging on a question like this, something so innocent and thrown around like it was nothing, was worse. Wooyoung must have felt San stop breathing for a moment, because he moves his head slightly, as if to look at him, though there was really nowhere for him to move without ruining the peace they’d built up.

“My mom.”

San feels unsettled again as he waits for him, Wooyoung probably expects him to say he was swimming through the ocean or he was flying through the sky at night and rainbows were coming out of his butt. He was full of surprises for him, he should have known that by now.

“You wanna talk about it?”

San sighs. He’s conflicted in the fact that talking about it would bring back the memories of such a shitty dream, but he knew that he shouldn’t keep it bottled up. It was the whole reason he came out here in the first place. Wooyoung didn’t know. 

He didn’t know.

“Uh...s-sure. It was just…” he swallowed thickly once he had blurred fragments on his dream in his head, projected above him and it’s then when he notices how the sky seemed to get as dark as it had been in his dream, and Wooyoung’s weight behind him was crushing, deadly if he stayed in his head too long. “It was the accident...again. It was raining. And she was dying in front of me, _again._ ” 

San shuts his eyes again to try to keep himself at bay, feeling his eyelids begin to well and there were pins and needles in his throat as his nose prickled. He barely started and he wanted to stop already.

“She died in an accident?” Wooyoung’s voice is wary and slow, as if San was made of caution tape and police sirens, but San wants it to be normal, like this is an everyday conversation. He wished he just spoke to him normally, and not as if he was broken, but the truth of the matter was that he was right in every instance and they both knew it. But he thinks for a moment, and he decided that it felt better to know that Wooyoung knew the conversation could stop if they needed it to.

If San needed it to.

“Drunk driver, yeah.” San feels a tear paint his temple, following his hairline and dripping off the shell of his ear, his heart heavy, as if he’d thrown it into the sea and it took its time sinking, drowning and suffocating in such an unrelenting, yet tranquil place. 

He was so warm today, yet frozen in his own being.

“She, uh…” San swallows again, his throat tight as he sees her blood again, feels her icy skin again, hears her choking again, and it makes him feel ill as the urge to cry had tainted his soul and was strangling his heart the more he spoke about her. He tries to fight himself, leaning off of Wooyoung completely, hunching over as if to hide his pain from the sun. It felt like his bones were made of the heaviest branches, broken off and held together with cheap yarn from his favorite craft store.

He groans softly as he begins to struggle to keep himself from crying, as if he was balancing on the edge of a black hole he had created himself, but his mouth was reflecting it and he couldn’t help himself from letting his mouth form the frown it had been brawling for. He brings his knees up to his chest, hanging his head and resting his forehead on them, trying to focus.

_Just finish the story. Come on, San._

He looks up into the sea again, trying to collect his thoughts and hearing Wooyoung shuffle behind him, probably staring at him to figure out what to do. He felt bad, for putting him in a position like this. 

He wouldn’t know what to do, either.

“Mmm...She was a-alive for...a little. I was only a kid, you know? I couldn’t…” San brings an arm up to his face and wipes his eyes into his sweater sleeve, sighing heavily, his heart weighing his chest down and he felt really, really sick. He shakes, and his frown becomes a scowl as he starts to cry a little harder, thinking about the dream and how close it was to the real thing.

Dreams were nearly too real.

“She...she was choking on her o-own blood, and I was screaming...f-for her. The police, they…” San swallows, and the tears felt nearly uncontrollable and he felt so overwhelmed this afternoon as he sighs out loud, “Ah...too late...and,” His throat hurts, face getting hot as he lets a breath go, rubbing at his eyes again, feeling stale as he cried again today, “sh-she died while I was holding her hand. Just...b-begging, you know? A six-year-old trying to... pull his _fucking_ mom out from under a car.”

San doesn’t notice Wooyoung had taken a seat in the space beside him, kicking his legs softly and looking into the denim of his pants while San cried into his hands, feeling his tears soak into his skin, and it really did feel like he was constantly storming, ready to rain again and again whenever he wanted to.

He never _wanted_ to, really. It just happens far too often.

He feels Wooyoung’s eyes on him.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.” Wooyoung’s voice is far away, and San shakes his head as best as he could behind his hands, wiping his underneath his eyes with his fingers and looking up into the sky, letting a breath go as he tries to focus.

“It’s okay...it’s okay. I don’t mind...It’s just hard.” San shakes his head and blinks once, then twice, trying to steady his breaths as another tear rolls down his cheek, feeling embarrassed for crying so hard in front of someone. He takes another breath, finding it a little easier to calm down once he trains his eyes into the sea, not looking up at the sun for now. 

God, he feels so dumb. 

He feels Wooyoung looking at him, over his warmed skin and clumpy eyelashes and Wooyoung sees just how dark San’s eyes could get. He slowly brings up a hand, adorning silver rings like always, and cautiously puts it to San’s cheek to catch the tear making its way to his chin. San stops, and it takes him a second to realize what’s going on before he glances at him, not sure what to do, not really having anyone there to listen and keep him company while he cries like this. 

He meets his eyes, and Wooyoung’s gentle in wiping the rest of it from San’s face, as if he was distracted by something. San can’t help but stare; he admires how the stars have embedded themselves in him, the glints of curiosity and carefulness that San always sees in his eyes studded golden in the sunlight, how the galaxy and the vastest oceans have created a home in him and he thinks that maybe Jung Wooyoung really did hold all of the universe in his heart. It was if he was meant to be explored, to be adventured, in just his radiant smile that held glimpses of reassurance and the way his eyebrows jumped when he was listening to someone. As he’s staring at him in the haloing light, as he sees just how priceless he really was, as he’s igniting him with the incandescence of some kind of emotion he hasn’t felt ever on his skin, as gold leaf polished his lips and painted him in a soft halo, he thinks Wooyoung could stop the world if he really wanted to. He would stop everything just to talk to him, just to look at him, and San sees it so clearly that it makes him sick. 

Wooyoung would stop everything, just for him.

And suddenly, as he watches his eyes flicker across his skin with all the wonder in the world painted on his face, he adds this to the list in his head of all the many different ways Wooyoung has looked at him in the past six days, and how he would never understand exactly what they meant.

He gets embarrassed. 

San looks down into his lap just as Wooyoung takes back his hand, playing with his own fingers and thinking. 

Wooyoung — how easy it was to be with him, was scaring him. How easy it was for him to slip into his head, how easy it was for him to pronounce his name, how easy it was to crave his presence, was frightening to San. He knew he’d have the most difficulty trying to get rid of him before he tossed San out first.

But today, something in him made him decide that he would try a little less to kick Wooyoung out of his heart’s brittle brick home.

San leans over slightly, resting his head on Wooyoung’s shoulder, and while he shuts his eyes, salty and aching as much as he had been, he feels a little better in the time being. His lagniappe, in the form of magic and the darkest hair to complement honey glossed skin, was so close by, and it made him start to wonder many things again.

The first one being whether or not Wooyoung would be the reason that he stopped crying as much.

San swallows, and while the silence they fell into wasn’t uncomfortable, he feels like he needs to say something, anything. There isn’t much to say, but San goes back into his head as he watches the waves foam around the rocks beneath them, and he remembers that Wooyoung had come out here with something, maybe with the intention of doing something with it.

“You said you brought your camera?”

Wooyoung nods silently, reaching behind as to try and not let San fall off of his shoulder, grabbing it after two tries and bringing it to them. San takes it softly, still unsure whether or not Wooyoung cared if people touched his stuff like he knew some people to be, relieved once Wooyoung lets him take it out of his hands, still scared to look at his eyes and see exactly what he was thinking. He flips open the small screen, the cooling camera feeling nearly refreshing on his hot fingertips as he turns it backward, before twisting the lens towards them and holding it up.

San came out here and smiled today. It was so easy to frown, and San wanted to be sure that a form of happiness would be stained on a photo for a while. He figured, while it was easy to frown, it was effortless to smile with Wooyoung around, and he didn’t want him to forget it. 

Of course, he’d never tell Wooyoung that.

“Let’s take a photo.” Is all he says.

And Wooyoung didn’t know exactly what San meant, and there were still tears caught in his eyelashes and his nose set off a peach glow in the golden sun as he sniffled lightly, but he threw his arm around him anyway and brought him in closer as he held up the camera.

Wooyoung looks at them in the screen, and smiles widely, San grinning delicately at how happy Wooyoung was and had always been with him. He takes the photo once, the camera shadowed in the light of the falling sun and he brings it down, going into the gallery by pressing what he hoped was (and correctly guessed, to his relief) the right button. He looks at the two of them, pressed against each other’s faces and looking really, really happy, despite how San felt a little while ago. They were washed in the burnt-out lemonade embers of the sky, looking like apparitions while the earth was fully alive and well behind them.

Mystical, ethereal, almost, as if they belonged in a cave of wonders for someone to find or set behind tempered glass inside of a precious jewelry store.

They were pretty together. San thinks that Wooyoung bled himself into everything.

“We look nice,” Wooyoung tells him.

“We do. I like it.”

Wooyoung smiles against his hair, bringing his arm down to San’s arm and hugging him softly. Normally, on a regular day, San would despise Wooyoung. He would despise how someone cared for him this much, and they didn’t even really know him. He would despise how someone could always keep their head up, even when the world always threw them for loops. 

But today, he doesn’t think the world could give him enough love. 

“You wanna go to the diner later?” Wooyoung’s voice is low this time, soft and comforting and it reminds San so much of the cliff, as if he belonged within the secret serenity of the world and San almost felt like an intruder.

He nods softly, moving his head a little into the crook of Wooyoung’s neck, pressing closer to him, and as Wooyoung’s grip around him tightens, he wants to explode, hoping he didn’t feel how red his face was or the nerves radiating off of him into the sky. 

Jung Wooyoung and his stupid self. He really didn’t deserve someone like him.


	8. the groupchat and how excited they are to see san

**_u guys_ **

**_me and san walk home together now_ **

**_and we go on adventures on school nights_ **

**_and text everyday_ **

**_and he cooks me food when i go over and we watch a lot of tim burton movies_ **

**_he loves corpse bride_ **

**_he says the piano piece reminds him of a rainstorm and how the rain hits the puddles it makes_ **

**_or like stars_ **

**_or of his favorite video game i forgot_ **

**_and his favorite snack is popcorn mixed with chocolate candies in it_ **

**_did i mention we're always out on school nights??? my mothers gonna kill me_ **

**_im a criminal_ **

**_choi san has turned me into a criminal_ **

**gi:** _bitch ur so dramatic everyone in here know damn well the worst thing youve ever done was accidentally steal a milk carton from the lunch line_

 **jong:** _hawl awn,,,, yall pay for those???_

 **yeosnag:** _WAIT WERE SUPPOSED TO PAY FOR MILK_

 **hongjoongie:** _capitalism will destroy us all but u guys aint ready for that conversation_

 **yuyu:** _:0 IVE BEEN STEALING CHOCOLATE MILKS FROM THE LUNCH LADIES!!!_

 **gi:** _wait wooyoung its been literally less than a week how many times have u and san hung out_

 **jong:** _yeah wait_

 **jong:** _his mom doesnt have a problem w u coming over every day??? must b nice_

**_every single day i have been with choi san_ **

**_every day dawg_ **

**_and his parents arent around_ **

**_his mom is dead_ **

**_and his dad is always out_ **

**_he works a lot_ **

**_san is always in the house by himself_ **

**hongjoongie:** _aw shit_

 **yeosnag:** _:((((_

 **yuyu:** _u know,,, i think it's good that u go keep him company_

**_he said his door is always unlocked_ **

**_so i go over sometimes_ **

**_when he doesnt text me all day_ **

**_and sometimes i find him crying or looking bored but then we go out! and he stops crying!_ **

**_he says he misses her a lot_ **

**_i get sad too :(((_ **

**jong:** _dude fuck i didnt know his mom died_

 **hongjoongie:** _thats so sad man_

 **hongjoongie:** _i hope hes doing okay :(((_

**_hes doing better_ **

**_i only knew him a week but the first time i met him compared to now i think hes doing a little better_ **

**_i hope im doing enough for him_ **

**_he does a lot 4 me too i just wanna b there for him_ **

**yuyu:** _ur doing wonderful woo <3 _

**yeosnag:** _u guys r like fucking soulmates bro_

 **yeosnag:** _always together, looking out for each other, perfect personalities, same interests_

 **gi:** _kinda like all of us 4 each other_

 **hongjoongie:** _:0 u right!!_

 **hongjoongie:** _we r soulmates uwu_

 **jong:** _lets all get married!_

 **yuyu:** _YEAH!!_

 **yeosnag:** _omg i hear hwas phone going off in his bedroom he’s taking a nap_

 **yeosnag:** _hes gonna wake up :(((_

 **yuyu:** _HWAAA (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧_

 **jong:** _bRU YEOSANG GO SILENCE HIS PHONE_

 **jong:** _GUYS STOP TEXTING SO HWA CAN SLEEP_

 **gi:** _im hungry_

 **yuyu:** _mingi!!_

 **hongjoongie:** _u do realize that sending texts not to text is just sending a text and another notification right_

 **jong:** _,,,, as u send another text_

 **hongjoongie:** _YOU LITERALLY SENT ONE JUST NOW_

 **jong:** _OMG JOONG_

 **hongjoongie:** _jongho oh my god_

 **hwa:** _hello_

 **jong:** _goddammit_

 **hongjoonie:** _see what u have done_

 **hwa:** _it is okay_

 **hwa:** _there is always time to sleep_

 **hwa:** _never enough timet o listennotnwooyong_

 **hwa:** _continue riwht toyr story i wanna hear aboit_

 **hwa:** _sannei_

**_hwa :((( i love u! sorry 4 waking u up_ **

**hwa:** _ur okay baby!!!_

**_also there is no story_ **

**_i was just saying_ **

**_that i really love spending time with san_ **

**_we r very different from each other but so alike???_ **

**_he’s so quiet and reserved and shy and im like,,, too loud_ **

**_but it works!!_ **

**_it’s like mingi and yunho_ **

**jong:** _yeah mingis a loozer_

 **yeosnag:** _mingi is like the grinch and yunho is the christmas presents_

 **gi:** _shut the hell up before i cut ur ears off_

 **yeosnag:** _see_

**_i like the grinch :(((_ **

**yuyu:** _me too!! he was phenomenal in that one movie_

 **gi:** _baby he was only in one movie_

 **yuyu:** _AND HE WAS PHENOMENAL!!!_

 **hwa:** _woo how long have u guys been hanging out_

 **jong:** yall get out more than me my mom would never let me stay out past 9

**_neither would mine!! she just dont know about it_ **

**_and all week including today_ **

**_so tomorrow will be seven whole days of seeing san_ **

**_did u guys know he likes chameleons_ **

**_isnt that so weird_ **

**jong:** _AT ALL I LOVE CHAMELEONS_

 **yuyu:** _THEYRE SO CUTEEE (〃^∇^)ﾉ_

 **yuyu:** _with their little karate chop hands_

 **yuyu:** _they be like - <-< _

**gi:** _U GUYS R WEIRD CHAMELEONS ARE FUCKIGN UGLY_

 **hongjoongie:** _yOURE UGLY_

 **gi:** _take that back or i will literally shove u in my mouth and eat u_

 **jong:** _vore mingi vore mingi_

 **yeosnag:** _i think woo and san r very cute_

 **gi:** _woo is in love w san wbk_

 **jong:** _wooyoung gay_

 **hongjoongie:** _san gay_

 **hwa:** _hongjoong gay_

 **yuyu:** _woosanjoong gay lmao_

**_i like him a lot to be Honest_ **

**_am scared i’m@moving too fast_ **

**_he makes me feel like_ **

**_idk man_ **

**_my heart goes like_ **

**_BLAT!!_ **

**hwa:** _woo u come off strong_

 **hwa:** _but i think thats what san needs_

 **hwa:** _bc hes so reserved_

 **hwa:** _he needs someone to pull him out of his comfort zone ya know_

 **gi:** _what hwa said!_

 **yuyu:** _i think he likes u a lot too_

**_BUT WE’VE ONLY KNOWN EACH OTHER FOR LIKE SIX DAYS_ **

**jong:** _so what!!_

 **yeosnag:** _thats how most things start sweetie_

 **yuyu:** _as long as ur getting to know him for him and not a version that u want him to be_

 **yuyu:** _and as long as u love him for who he is!!_

 **hongjoongie:** _kinda gay but i agree_

 **jong:** _san seems like such a nice guy :(((_

 **jong:** _i saw him in the hallway yesterday with hyojong and he was like yo that kids kinda hot and i was like what! what kid! but i knew EXACTLY who he was talking about bitch i felt so sneaky_

 **yeosnag:** _DAWNIEEEE_

**_DUDE I REMEMBER DAWN_ **

**_I DIDNT KNOW U STILL TALKED TO HIM_ **

**_HE MOVED AWAY_ **

**jong:** _yeah for like a week but then he came back lmao_

 **jong:** _his parents move around a lot but i think they managed to stay here_

 **hongjoongie:** _his girlfriend is,,,, hot_

 **yuyu:** _HYUNAAAA_

 **yuyu:** _what a wonderful pair_

 **yuyu:** _they make me so (♡ ‿ ♡)_

 **jong:** _he saw me looking i think but he doesnt know me! so i couldnt say hi_

 **yeosnag:** _yes u couldve ur just a loser_

 **jong:** _shut up stinky!_

 **hwa:** _super duper excited to see san again tomorrow!_

 **yuyu:** _IM GONNA SMOOCH HIM!!_

 **yeosnag:** _NO YUNHO_

 **yeosnag:** _we gotta wait_

 **yeosnag:** _and THEN u can smooch_

 **jong:** _give big kith_

 **gi:** _bitch hes gonna think we’re all so weird_

 **hwa:** _he loves me and yeosang so yall gotta worry bout urselves_

 **hongjoongie:** _damn_

 **jong:** _hes gonna hate us_

 **jong:** _hes gonna think i like to break fruit and break faces_

 **jong:** _wait woo u didnt tell san i could break fruit right_

 **hwa:** _why would he lmao_

 **gi:** _that isnt something that wooyoung would like,,, tell san_

 **gi:** _right_

**_uh_ **

**_i uh_ **

**_uh_ **

**jong:** _WOOYOUNG_

**_IM SORRY I JUST LIKE WATCHING U BREAK FRUIT_ **

**yeosnag:** _JSNDISNFIEK_

 **hongjoongie:** _IM SCREAMING_

 **gi:** _yall know damn well wooyoung snitched on all of us_

 **gi:** _he probably told san that i pissed my pants in third grade_

 **yeosnag:** _hawl awn u havent told us that_

 **hongjoongie:** _THE THIRD GRADE_

 **gi:** _ITS A NORMAL THING TO PISS UR PANTS IN THIRD GRADE_

 **yuyu:** _mingi sweetheart u know im behind u on everything but,,,, this one,,,,_

 **hongjoongie:** _arent u like nine in third grade_

 **gi:** _THE TEACHER WOULDNT LET ME GO_

 **gi:** _so i was like aight fuck it,,,, and peed right in the middle of running a lap_

 **hongjoongie:** _shit when u say it like that_

 **gi:** _whole lotta gang shit i do what i want_

 **yeosnag:** _omg_

 **jong:** _OMG WOOYOUNGGG_

 **jong:** _WHAT ELSE HAVE U TOLD HIM_

**_NOTHING BAD OMG_ **

**_i just said that u like to break fruit and that we love u a lot uwu_ **

**_and then i told him that mingi likes flowers a lot_ **

**_and that yunho takes mingi to the garden a lot_ **

**_and that seonghwa and yeosang r in love w each other_ **

**_and that they both like to cook 4 each other_ **

**_and that yunho and mingi r in love w each other_ **

**_and that hongjoong likes to do crazy stuff like get tattoos at 2am_ **

**_and that hongjoong would probably try to get san to get a tattoo_ **

**_and that mingi said my smile reminded him of gypsophila!!!!_ **

**gi:** _oh jeez now he probably thinks im like gay or something_

 **yuyu:** _HEY THATS TRUE I DO TAKE MINGI TO THE GARDENS_

 **hongjoongie:** _hey i_ _would NOT try to get san to ink his skin out_

 **hongjoongie:** _yet ;)_

 **jong:** _oh good LORD_

 **hwa:** _guys its fINE_

 **hwa:** _i just hope u guys like him_

 **jong:** _fuck dat i hope he likes US_

**_ofc he will!_ **

**_san doesnt judge_ **

**_he loves everyone_ **

**_just doesnt talk a lot_ **

**_so dont be upset if he doesnt hold a conversation tomorrow okay_ **

**_once he gets to know u he will_ **

**hongjoongie:** _im scared lowkey_

 **jong:** _me too kinda_

 **yeosnag:** _me three kinda_

 **gi:** _now i gotta act normal_

 **hwa:** _for once_

 **gi:** _SHUT UPPP_


	9. san and how quickly he fell in love with his friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah hello!! long time no see
> 
> very sorry for the late chapter! i've been in a block recently but! my favorite person ever!! helped me get over it and now i have the ending for this au written ^-^
> 
> if you are still here, thank you so much for staying with this! i truly hope that you're enjoying this so far. i understand it's a slow burn and it might be a tedious read, but if you find yourself enjoying this then it's more than enough for me. i really, really appreciate the kudos, comments, messages sent, etc. about this au from u!! i get nervous about it sometimes so it means the WORLD that u take time out of ur day to read and tell me how the au is doing!! i hope that doesn't come off as cocky or anything like that at all :(( 
> 
> it's not that deep i kNOW but thank u for everything!!! <333
> 
> please enjoy! things pick up a little later c:

The sun sank low on the horizon today, and instead of the usual apricot bleed San had been used to on days like this, a sudsy champagne flooded the sky, stroked in soft pinks and San thinks it looks more beautiful than it had been the last couple times he’d seen it. 

Like the streaks of color inside marble countertops, or the pretty drip of fuschia in the middle of sakura blossoms. San had always thought cherry blossoms were pretty. Maybe that would be the one flower he didn’t mind, the one that he knew kept growing even when it rained or snowed or shone too much.

San held his black beret in his lap as he sat in the passenger seat of Wooyoung’s old car, leaning his head against the window, something he did almost every time he was in here. Most people would hate the constant buzzing of the pavement against the glass, or the vibrating against his head and - even more annoying - his specs, making a weird, tin can rattling sound as long as the car was driving. But San never minded it; it felt like he was in a rocketship and they were blasting off to go explore the moon, a muddled excitement for them in his chest to find water on Mars or admire the diamond showers on Uranus. 

He liked Wooyoung’s car. It was liberating to be in here with him.

He’d been watching houses pass by as they left their neighborhood, a little farther from Yeosang’s diner and past their cliff, finding his thoughts in the blur of beiges and whites and greens from the trees lining the median. The sidewalks had been empty, but it wasn’t the kind of ghostly empty that haunted his own neighborhood, and he found comfort in the idea that many people walked down them every morning after they woke up, and every night before they went to sleep. 

It was different. 

As the air conditioning cools over his face, the afternoon heat blanketing over the car, San finds himself thinking again, locked in his head for the nth time since waking up today and strolling through his gallery of memories. He always did that. It was a constant thing for him, to be thinking, whether it be by himself, or with one of the main reasons behind those same dreams sitting right beside him. He lets his gaze travel upwards, seeing Yeosang and Seonghwa smiling at him in the remaining azure leaking out of the afternoon sky. He sees the diner in the streaky clouds that completed it, and the living room he imagined every time he went through the door.

There was something in the back of his head, pinching and irritating him the less he’d thought about it. Maybe it was the terrifying thought of him having to talk to new people, to try and spark conversation from nothing and risk getting burned. There was something about the constant fear of new people thinking he was weird that put a damper on literally everything looking forward to seeing them, or maybe it’s the fear that they wouldn’t like him after today and it would cause trouble for Wooyoung.

Wooyoung’s friends not talking to him anymore because of San. The idea makes him sick.

His heart suddenly sinks, as if he had accidentally lost his footing off of the peak of Everest, and he pulls off of the window, trying to calm himself down without drawing attention to himself. His face goes hot, his cheeks and nose and ears putting his insecurities and worries on display for everyone in the neighborhood to see if they looked out their window, and he’s staring down at his beret, feeling his palms begin to get clammy atop of the fabric as he plays with the hem of it, sinking his thoughts into the black color of it, hoping they’d drown.

The car jiggles over a pothole, and the sun paints a pretty stripe across the fabric for a split second, warming the tips of his first two fingers as he smoothes them over his beret and giving him a slight ruse of calmness for that moment.

 _Okay._ He was okay.

“You good, San?” Wooyoung asks, his voice piercing into his head, like the gentle thunders of Cimarron that slowly rip through the constant storms plaguing the forests there.

Like it belonged, but it was so distinct and somewhat unfamiliar that it should have been somewhere else. It doesn’t bother him so much.

“Y-yeah.” San shifts wary eyes to Wooyoung’s hand on the gear shift, his silver rings glinting in the afternoon sun, painting crystal shadows on the ceiling of the car.

He didn’t want to nag him with this. He would just have to not think about it until it actually happened, and _that’s_ when he could fret about it again, but this time, in front of them.

“Don’t lie,” Wooyoung tells him, and he brings his hand up to grip the steering wheel as they take a turn into another neighborhood, way more pristine and teeming with cleanliness and high sums of tax money that San could almost see exactly what Yunho’s house looked like. As soon as they pass the stop sign at the first intersection, San feels the car slow, cruising as he looks out of the windshield at a house they were coming up to, his eyebrows drawn together as his eyes flick back and forth between the house right next to them and the one a little ways ahead.

With the way Wooyoung’s eyebrows are together as he has confusion powdered all over his face, hasn’t been here in a while, it seems like. San takes a breath, watching Wooyoung carefully steer them forwards, and once he mumbles an _ah, here it is,_ he goes into overdrive again, his insides feeling like cut circuits as he predicts what’s going to happen when he sets foot in there, the electricity of keeping to himself all the time and the shock of never talking to new people almost deadly to him as he worries. 

He’s going to go in there, say hi, and they’re going to say hi back, and then he’s going to go get water about an hour in without talking and spill it everywhere. And then Wooyoung’s friends are going to think he’s weird, even more strange for not talking as much as someone like him, and then they’re going to ignore Wooyoung because the friend he brought was _weird._

Okay, San thinks that maybe he dramatized things a little too much.

“What’s wrong, Moon?” Wooyoung stops the car right behind a couple of other ones, both black but from different dealers, but San couldn’t really focus on them and instead let his eyes go straight to Yunho’s house.

It was big and simple, as if it belonged in a diagram poster on the wall of a geometry class, painted white with the reflection of the sunset taking on a darker hue through the glass windows. A couple made up nearly the entire wall of the house, others were small and decorated the side of it (San assumed to let more light through because there was _no_ way someone could reach that), and if San looked hard enough he could see all of the furniture and part of the backyard outside from where he was. It was exactly the kind of house San would imagine to be in a place like this, modernist and too nice for someone like him.

He looks away.

“I’m just...I’m kinda scared.”

San glances at Wooyoung as he sighs softly, the same kind that told him he was _definitely_ overthinking, trying to figure out what he was going to say to him before it actually left his mouth. Wooyoung meets his eyes, and his face softens as he gives San a small smile, his lips highlighted ruby in the sunlight coming in through the windshield, gold undertones in his skin and honey slashed through his pretty eyes. San’s caught for a moment, as if he’d been cemented in resin, as Wooyoung glances above his forehead and reaches over. San smells the remnants of his perfume lightly dusting the space they were in for a moment before he feels him smooth down a stray strand of hair, lightly running his fingers through his black bangs. 

San is silent, while he watches Wooyoung tell him nearly too much with such a simple gesture, and a grin that was sugared in the sweetest reassurance was more than enough for San to stop stressing so much. 

He feels it in his stomach, how time could be compared to nothing with Wooyoung looking at him like that. He can’t help but look down at his hands again after Wooyoung tilts his head in such a benevolent manner, in a way that made San want to scream at him for knowing just how to solve his puzzles, even something as dumb and difficult as _feeling_ , with just a look.

“Don’t be. They’re gonna love you, Moon.”

And his voice is just as warm and just as thin as the sunlight before them, and San thinks that maybe, if Wooyoung said it, it would be true. He nods softly, taking Wooyoung’s words and tripling their weight, because they both knew that he would need it. 

“Hey, stay here for a sec.”

San picks his head up again to watch Wooyoung quickly get out of the driver’s seat, his demeanor changing back into the excited one that San knew all too well, and he smiles at him as they make eye contact again through the windshield (sending San’s stomach into a mess of soaring butterflies and rollercoaster rushes). He watches him hurry over to the passenger door, a tiny grin on his face, and San knows exactly what he’s doing and for a moment his train of thought switches over to fairy tales and midnight bell tolls, wraps up in the enchantment that is Jung Wooyoung and his heart falls for the second time that day. 

He watches as Wooyoung opens his door wide, and as he holds his hand out for San to take while the afternoon sun haloes over him in the prettiest corona behind his shoulder, he thinks Wooyoung was too made up for someone like him.

“My dear,” he puts on this stupid accent, and bows his head slightly, his black hair falling into his face. San stares at him with a look that Wooyoung couldn’t see but knew exactly what he was thinking already, making him nearly crack at the image of him. And despite there being nobody out here to see them, San feels a blush make its way to the apples of his cheeks as he looks around.

He can’t help but smile widely at him, antics to help him feel better being one of Wooyoung’s specialties, and San laughs with a shake of his head, taking Wooyoung’s hand and holding his beret with the other, letting him help him out of the car.

“You’re so cheesy,” San tells him, and Wooyoung glances at his mouth once before shutting the door in front of him.

San fits his beret onto his black hair, tilting it to the side a little, trying to go for something more dressy but not too much to where they knew he had been nervous. He wore his specs today just so they wouldn’t think he’d tried too hard (which he absolutely _did_ but he would make sure they didn’t know that). 

“You love it, and you know it.”

The faint hint of Wooyoung’s perfume ties in with the hazy air around him again, and there’s something about it braided in with the warm sun on his cold face that makes him slip into his subconscious for a moment, placid while walking with Wooyoung to the door. The very cause of his nerves was the same cause of his tranquility, and San adds that to the list of the many impossibles Wooyoung has shown to surpass lately. He gently presses the back of his hand to San’s as they walk, his skin tepid as it brushes against San’s, and he remembers that it was a normal thing to hold hands with your friends.

Wooyoung was very much a fan of that, San knew.

He lets him slip his hand into his own, trying not to get nervous with him as he locks his fingers with his, softly swinging them in between each other as they take their time to get there, and this ultimately calms San a bit more and he’s grateful how he didn’t have to say something for Wooyoung to get it.

San shrugs. “Guess I can’t argue with that, huh?”

He lightly pushes his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, bringing his lips in as he watches Wooyoung step past him a little, closer to Yunho’s door. He goes to knock before he stops, glancing at San with a small smile as if he was going to tell him something, but he quickly drops his head and his smile disappears for a little, and San wonders if that’s how matches feel when they’re blown out.

He could almost see the white smoke trailing from his head.

“San, these guys have known me for the past four years. They’re gonna love you!” And when San only nods with his eyebrows knitted together, telling Wooyoung he didn’t really move him, he tilts his head again. “I’m not supposed to say this, but they’ve been talking about you all week. Everyone is really excited to meet you.”

San nods again, kind of giving him a little closure before he _really_ thinks about it, and suddenly his ears grow warm, tempered with the flattery of Wooyoung talking to all of his friends about him. San gives him a look, his eyes squinted together a bit and his eyebrows soften into a raise, Wooyoung silent in waiting for him to speak again.

“...You’ve been talking about me?”

Wooyoung’s eyes meet with the pavement underneath San’s feet as his heart stops for a moment, not really one to think before he opens his mouth, and he breathes in as if he was going to say something in rebuttal to San, but he turns away from him quickly and knocks on Yunho’s door, a little too loudly for what San would expect.

“ _Yunho!_ We’re here!”

San giggles and hides his face by looking at his shoes (not that Wooyoung was looking, too busy dealing with his own humiliation, too flustered to even really think), lightly hearing laughter coming from inside, and quick footsteps running from somewhere farther away from the door. While they’re waiting, with Wooyoung looking through the window at them (Yeosang hitting who San assumed was Hongjoong with a cushion pillow straight to the face), San’s eyes catch their hands again. Their fingers are intertwined, the striped black and white long sleeve he was wearing under his shirt a little too big for him as it nearly swallowed both of their hands. 

He thinks it was a nice picture; it was another reminder to him of freedom, to be holding Woo’s hand like this in such a domestic way when he’s about to go do something way out of his comfort zone.

And there was nothing awkward about it. This, that became the stuff of many people’s nightmares, was something that came easy to them. He was never really anxious holding hands with Wooyoung, but among the other things he’s done, he was terrified. He lightly bites the inside of his bottom lip as he studies the same rings on Wooyoung’s fingers, placed almost the same as every single time he sees him. 

The middle had one where the forefinger didn’t today.

As San’s deep in thought about something as dumb as Wooyoung’s rings, the door opens, and it’s only then when San’s heart drops and his hands get clammy, nerves rooting themselves in his chest and his bones and his bloodstream like oak trees upon seeing a new face.

Yunho was very much taller than San. His eyes are bright, nearly glinting in the afternoon sun as if he was made of all the diamonds that the world could muster for him, and his curled, black hair is messy on his head. There was something about the natural blush on his high cheeks that reminded San of such a dangerous boy-next-door composure that could stop the world and make you love him way more than you wanted to. 

His eyes land on San so quickly, he forgets that they were strangers to each other for a moment and not best friends who’ve been looking forward to seeing each other after so long.

“San!” His voice sounds like the vastness of the Amazon, how warm and full it was as it took up the space San and Wooyoung were in, just like that. 

San smiles up at him, and Yunho backs up excitedly while opening the door, telling them both to _come in, come on, we’re gonna get pizza later!_ San swallows once he hears voices coming from a spot to the right of him, just past the divide in the wall decorated with paintings and a cool bronze lion sculpture in the middle, and he hears couch cushions creaking and an advertisement playing, about...what?

Laxatives? 

He stops listening as quickly as he began, invests his attention into the door closing behind them and the quick shuffling of Yunho’s clothes, and San thinks that maybe all of Wooyoung’s friends were just as boisterous as he was.

“San, it’s so good to meet you! I’m Yunho!”

Even introducing himself, he was lovely. San gives him another smile, kind of hard not to when it was obvious he was really eager to see him, feels his eyes squint up as he leads him deeper into his house, and immediately his eyes follow to the pool outside just across the dining room space. The floors were wooden and everything was so bright, San felt out of place. His own house was dark and small and empty and the roof was falling apart. 

Yunho must have had people over all the time.

“H-hi, Yunho. It’s really nice to see you.” San’s voice is chalky, but he tries his best to not get too nervous before he sees everyone else. 

If one guy gets him he can’t even imagine three more.

“Is that San?” Yeosang’s voice was recognizable among two people laughing, and San held Wooyoung’s hand a little tighter as he saw all of these unfamiliar faces apart from Yeosang and Seonghwa, sitting on the living room couch and holding throw pillows or watching advertisements on television.

He looks at the dark wood floor with a smile as he hears a collection of _hi_ and _hey, San!_ , as if they could see it themselves. Wooyoung had let go of him and gone with Yunho to where San assumed was the kitchen, probably to raid his fridge or drink out all of his juice, dropping him off in the middle of the sea and leaving him to swim with sharks.

Okay, that wasn’t true. It felt even worse.

“Hi, you guys,” San gives a tiny wave to nobody in particular after looking up at them, but he catches Yeosang smiling widely at him, and then the two boys all the way to the left.

“Sannie, you look so cute! Come meet some of us!” Yeosang stands up from his seated position on the couch beside Seonghwa and hurries to him. “Has anyone seen Mingi?”

He reaches out for San’s hand, his own black sweater falling over his palms, before San lets him lead him to the middle of the connected white leather couch, right beside him.

Seonghwa takes him out of his head, reaching over and gently pinching his cheek between the knuckles of his first and middle finger before giving him a smile once he looks at him, listening to the television a little once their cartoon starts again.

“Hey, sweet pea.”

San thinks the nickname was too nice to fit him. But he doesn’t think about it after that.

“Hi, Hwa.” San’s voice is soft, but there was still some emphasis in there and Seonghwa smiles a bit bigger, his eyes squinting up and San feels his heart fill at something so simple. “I’m...it’s good to see you again.”

“We missed you,” Yeosang tells him, and San hides his coy smile from him, and Yeosang thinks it’s the sweetest thing for San to be this shy around people like them. 

That would definitely change. San just didn’t really know it, yet.

He’s silent as he breathes softly, looking to his left at a boy with his hair parted nicely to the side, and it was an off, sandy blonde color that San thought suited him well. His skin was flushed a dewy amber, bright even indoors and shaded from the sun, and he’s giving San a soft grin that reminded him of pretty glass marbles that makes him feel at ease.

There’s something about him that makes him seem familiar.

San looks away, heat rising on his cheeks like pink watercolor to a puddle once he feels like he’s been staring at him for way too long, before he glances at the one next to him, curiosity nagging him. That boy was staring at him, too, his hair the first thing San noticed and _kept_ noticing after that, his mouth parted slightly, as if he was just in the middle of a conversation and San was rude enough to interrupt him. He was really nice to look at, too, a thin, silver ring adorning the left side of his straight nose and his ears had jewelry in it, just like Wooyoung’s.

He met his eyes for a second, and the eye contact was enough to make him look down at his beat up white sneakers again, flustered as his heart beat so loud behind his eyelids and in his throat and down to his fingertips.

He _literally_ just got here.

“Hey, San. I’m Jongho,” the blonde boy waves at him, before he presses his hand to the top of the other’s head, making a face as Jongho pushes down. “This is Hongjoong. Joong for short.”

“Short names, remember?” Yeosang asks him, and San nods as his mind travels back to the diner, back to meeting Yeosang and Seonghwa for the first time and just how nice they had been to him, and he grins again.

“Hi, you guys.” San waves at them, and it’s only when Jongho smiles back that he finally throws a dart onto the familiarity of his face. He _knows_ him. “You go to Carter, right? I see you sometimes.” San tells him.

Jongho falls sheepish, his lips thinning into a shy smile and his cheeks jutting out. He looks almost adolescent in the way he was looking at his shoes. “Y-yeah, I saw you yesterday. I was too scared to say hi.”

San smiles, thinking back to that one time when Wooyoung told him he was intimidating and wondering if Jongho felt the same way. “I wish you did.”

“Me, too. I was-” They’re interrupted by quick footsteps coming from behind them, shooting into the living room through one of the many doors and stairways that Yunho had connected to this place. 

San looks up from his position on the couch and sees who he knew was Mingi. His hair was cherry red, too, just like Hongjoong’s, and it looked just as good on him as it did the other. San then imagines what Wooyoung would look like with red hair, and when he begins to get nervous about it, he squashes it.

“Hey, did Wooyoung and—” Mingi notices him sitting right next to Seonghwa and Wooyoung as he gets to the couch, his hands in his lap as he watches him come through. _“San!”_

San smiles at how his demeanor changed so quickly, and he comes up to him, nearly towering, his own specs bigger than San’s as they glinted in the white lights of Yunho’s living room. It didn’t help that he was wearing such a huge pink sweater, either. He guessed wearing oversized clothes was a thing for all of them, something about being able to hide himself within the folds of it appealing.

He didn’t mind.

“I’m Mingi! It’s nice to meet you,” His voice was so nice, deep yet flowery in every way and San thinks he could listen to Mingi talk all day if he wanted to.

It wasn’t hard to believe he was into everything beautiful, flowers and the stars and his friends. San liked that about him - he was easy to assume.

“Hey, Mingi. I like your hair.” San tells him, brings his hand up to his own as if Mingi wouldn’t understand him if he didn’t, like he would miss it in the soft side conversations of the living room between Jongho and Hongjoong, or Yunho and Wooyoung as they met everyone back in the living room.

He covers his mouth as his eyes squint up and San could tell he was shy when it came to stuff like this, too. 

“Thank you! Hongjoong insisted.” Mingi smiles warmly again as he walks towards the spot beside Yunho, where the couch extended a little and there was a place for you to stretch your legs, covered with fuzzy couch pillows and an even fuzzier blanket that had been crumpled at the foot of it.

Wooyoung sits in the spot San had left open for him, right beside Jongho, and if you were looking at them you wouldn’t be able to tell that San was the only outcast. He thought they fit in together, if not everyone then him and Wooyoung, or him and Yeosang and Seonghwa, or him and Jongho. Everyone just kind of worked out with each other and San hoped that he would fit in eventually. 

He liked them a lot already.

“Woo told me that...” his name being said gets his attention again, but San tries not to think about Wooyoung’s eyes on him yet because he knows he would screw up whatever he was trying to say and look dumb. “Hongjoong, he likes trying new things.”

Hongjoong smiles softly and nods, reaching over to Mingi across Jongho and pulling up his pink sweater sleeve a little, revealing a small bottom part of a flower on the side of his hand. Mingi sighs, as if Hongjoong had done this many times before to people they’ve met, holding it up and showing San as Hongjoong has a triumphant smile on his face, like he was showing off his most prized possession.

“I got Mingi up at three in the morning one day. We drove about an hour just to get this tattoo. It didn’t even take that much convincing.” Hongjoong tells him, his voice like candlelight and the higher registers of acoustic, and Mingi looks at his hand as Hongjoong pulls back just to lean on Jongho’s shoulder, really just too lazy to move back to his original spot against the back of the couch, his eyes on the ceiling as he thinks into the living room lights. “He cried so bad getting it.”

“ _Okay!_ He didn’t ask.”

Hongjoong smiles again while San giggles into the back of his hand, and he does something with his eyebrows that ends the conversation and any thought San might have had about it, and he thinks that Hongjoong had more power over all of them than he realized. He was a different kind of breathtaking, he was a different kind of _beautiful_ , and making statements with his carmine red hair or the ring in his nose or the many tattoos that San knew he had hidden underneath his shirt sleeves made him that much more appealing. 

San actually _wanted_ to be friends with Hongjoong, much more than anyone else he’s met before now.

“I wanna...hear more. About your tattoos. Is that your only one, Mingi?” San asks, his words coming out like poppy petals as Mingi raises his eyebrows, encouraging and sweet. 

He was still a little nervous, and with the way Wooyoung shifted himself so that he was sitting with a lean towards San, he knew that Wooyoung knew it, too. 

San thinks he’s too easy to read, that Wooyoung was nearly too eloquent in a way that it was effortless to turn San’s pages under wandering fingertips. He blushes when he thinks of Wooyoung. Just a simple thought, and San thinks he’s more dangerous than demons to get into his head like that.

“No, I have another. This was my first. I’ve got a cactus on my ankle.” Mingi says, his mouth disintegrating into a sheepish grin when he realizes how it sounded coming out of his mouth. “No one else here has any, except Hongjoong. He has a fuck ton.”

“I would love to get something cool. Like a big dragon. Or a robot!” Jongho shoots up, disturbing Hongjoong in a way that makes his eyes blow wide as he looks at Mingi.

“You’re way too young,” Seonghwa says, a head tilt that San used to see way too often when he was six, and Jongho looks at him, his eyebrows furrowed in a type of offense San only ever sees in little kids.

“I’m seventeen! We’re one year apart!”

“You act as if your mother wouldn’t kill you if she saw it anyway, babe.” Yunho shakes his head with one of his honeycomb grins, and Jongho sighs in something that San couldn’t differentiate between defeat or irritation, one of the two. 

Hongjoong throws an arm around him, smushing his face against his with a wide, closed mouth smile before pulling back to look at him, a pout on Jongho’s lips as he looks at the floor with smokey eyes. “Aw, don’t be sad, kid. We’ll sneak out one day. My treat.”

“Ten bucks says he cries.” Mingi looks at Jongho, and Wooyoung shakes his head, chuckling once at the thought of his friend crying over a tattoo.

“Twenty says he takes aspirin for it after.”

“Thirty says he cries _on the way there,”_ Seonghwa says, bringing his arm up to rest on the back of the couch as he leans his head on it, his face telling San that they usually have disputes like this at Jongho’s expense, and he finds it cliche in a way that’s homey and unfamiliar.

It was as if they were family.

“Jongho literally breaks apples like it’s chalk.” Hongjoong tries to defend him, but he really knows how painful tattoos get and Jongho would probably make the mistake of getting it on his ankle or behind his ear, and he knows he _would_ cry but Jongho already looked sad enough and he didn’t want to make it worse. “Toughest seventeen year old I know.”

Seonghwa shakes his head once. “Still gonna cry.”

“All this bullying makes me hungry. I’m ordering pizza. What do you want on it? Do you guys want hot wings? Or cheese bread?” Yunho suddenly perks off of the couch, that same cloying smile never leaving him as he runs out of the living room, and San hears quick, muffled footsteps that told him he was going up the stairs again.

He doesn’t think about it much after that.

“Well, while Yu is doing that, I say we watch bad horror movies to close this night out _right_.” Yeosang says, reaching over Seonghwa into the crack between the empty couch cushions that the remote had been wedged in, but nobody really cared to pull out.

San hadn’t even noticed it until Yeosang had it in his hand. 

“No!” Mingi tells him, his voice picking up reluctance and San finds it endearing that Mingi, probably the most intimidating out of all of them, was scared of horror movies and liked to go to the gardens with Yunho and had a little cactus tattooed on his ankle.

San hears Hongjoong tell Mingi that he could hold his hand if he wanted to and Mingi said he would rather die than do either of those things. Hongjoong laughs at him.

“Wait, Yunho! Get pineapples!” Jongho calls, and the entire room falls into a disgusted silence before Mingi throws one of the couch pillows at him, right in the back of his head, and Hongjoong pushes him with both of his hands and he falls back into the empty space where Yunho left. San smiles at them and at the feeling of watching his friends mess around with each other over something like pineapple pizza.

 _His friends_ . They were friends with each other now. The thought of being able to call them _his_ friends was foreign to him, as if he’d been swimming in freezing water for as long as he could remember. There were memories of the sunlight hitting him, his friends in the sandboxes when he was little, but ever since then, he’d been cold.

He thinks that now, his ice is melting.

“You want a drink, San?” Yeosang breaks his thoughts as easily as it is to shatter glass, getting up from beside him as the rest of them are shouting at Jongho.

San nods. “What are you gonna get?”

“Water, for now. There’s apple juice, too. Yunho’s probably gonna order soda. He can’t drink anything else with pizza. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.” 

San gasps at the thought, already tasting it on his tongue. “Can I have the apple juice?”

Yeosang nods with a smile, and Seonghwa hangs back a little to poke San’s cheek and make him smile wide again. San shakes his hand away as he hides his face from him, and Seonghwa grins before he leaves with Yeosang. It’s as if those two kind of knew everything that San had talked to Wooyoung about in the car. As if it was painfully obvious that San was weary to come here, Yeosang and Seonghwa knew exactly what was going on and did small things to make sure he was okay.

He thinks they care too much for someone like him. Way too much.

And while Yunho comes back down to the living room and distracts everyone from each other and everything with pizza options, Wooyoung takes the time to talk to San, his voice low and soft, while Yeosang and Seonghwa had gotten up and disappeared into the kitchen. 

“See? They’re nice.”

San nods, playing with his fingers in his lap. It’s only then when he notices how dark it had gotten outside, probably having to do with the changes of fall or climate pollution, something like that, and he remembers what he has to do today once he gets back home.

Nothing, right.

“Y-yeah. I like them a lot.”

Wooyoung leans closer to San’s ear, nudging it with his nose and he smiles, and San falls sheepish because he knows just what he was going to say and can’t he be wrong, just once? Or ever?

“I told you so.”

San smiles, lightly pushing him away with the thin veil of embarrassment cold on his back at having to admit that Wooyoung _did_ tell him so. San has his hand on Wooyoung’s chest, looking at him and going to tell him to stop before he causes attention to come their way. It was easy, looking at Wooyoung, nearly too offhand in a way that makes San fall into his eyes again, looking at everything and everyone that Wooyoung’s ever seen, and he feels the thought of what he was about to say slowly crumble and he doesn’t know if it was his terrible attention span or poor memory or _what._

“Shut—”

“San, Wooyoung! Pepperoni pizza’s okay? I’m getting a small pineapple one for Jongho.”

San quickly drops his hand from Wooyoung’s chest and wants to die for what seemed like the millionth time in just two hours, and Wooyoung tells him it was okay through giggles because it was so easy for San to fluster for nothing. Jongho sits up in between Mingi and Hongjoong, his legs thrown over Joong’s lap as he kicks them, moving them both sway.

“San! Do you wanna share it with me?”

“No one wants your pineapple pizza!” Mingi shouts, and Jongho falls back again and brings his arms up to pull at his cheeks.

“I only care about San’s opinion, loser.”

Mingi flicks Jongho’s forehead, and he scrunches up his nose, and San adds that to the traits of what makes Jongho so likeable. He was cute without really trying, complementing whomever he was with like it was nothing. 

It was easy for Jongho to just _be._

“I’ve never...I’ll try it,” San says, and he nods for emphasis when Jongho leans up again, looking at him with bright eyes and it reminded him so much of Yunho.

“Really? I knew you were the coolest one out of all of us.” Jongho tells him, and San wants to roll his eyes at that, all because he said he would try his pizza.

But he also finds it funny how he was able to win Jongho over so quickly.

“I forgot what I was going to say.” Wooyoung lowers his voice again once Jongho, Mingi, Hongjoong, and Yunho go back to their conversation (more like their argument), making a face to where his lips are in a thin line and his cheeks jut out, and San brings up his hand to squish his face, their voices getting lost in the muttering of the rest of them while he spoke.

One week ago San would never even talk to someone like Wooyoung, and now he’s got his face in his hand and giggling at how silly he looked, as if they were best friends with little boundary. 

Things change so, so quickly. 

“Something about your friends.” San sets his hand back in his lap and smoothes his thumb over the other’s nail as he’s quiet again to listen to whatever Wooyoung was going to say.

“Our friends.”

San smiles, those two simple words making him feel like early morning, how the sun lingers over the coldness of the world for a few moments in a cradling warmth before it blazes for the day. San always feels himself brightening when he’s around him, when he’s around _them,_ and he was beginning to love the feeling the more he thinks about it.

Wooyoung yawns softly, hiding his mouth behind his hand and ducking his head slightly, his hair falling into his face, despite the many times San has seen him brush it away tonight. He lifts his head back up and shakes his head to get rid of the hair, and San reaches up again to help him get it out of his face.

“Thank you, San. You’re an angel.” 

San actually does roll his eyes this time, messing up Wooyoung’s hair and causing his face to falter, looking at him with something that San can’t see behind his hidden eyes.

“Come on, Moon. You suck!”

“Sorry to interrupt you two.” Yeosang’s voice once again interrupts him and he feels like a broken stoplight as he quickly pulls away from Wooyoung. He doesn’t know how many times he’s going to get embarrassed in one night if he continues like this.

Yeosang hands him a juice box, leaving fingerprints in the frosted carton before he drinks it. It took a couple of sips for him to be okay, but he lets himself take in smaller sips so that he didn’t have to talk so much now. He felt the juice in his throat and when it settled in his stomach, and despite it being one of the many things he found weird about people, he liked the feeling and found himself thinking about that instead.

He made a mental note to look that up later.

And while the sun sank underneath the world and the moon flooded the whole town ivory, as Wooyoung and the rest of his friends were phantoms in the milky light that poured through the huge windows, and San tried pineapple pizza and loved how it tasted (to both his and Jongho’s pleasant surprise), and as his fingers tangled in Wooyoung’s hair as he laid in his lap to watch the B-rated movies Yeosang scrolled through, San thinks there was nothing better than having a group of friends exactly like them.

He thinks there was nothing better than being accepted by seven other people he didn’t know, not _really,_ and he feels like he’s above the stars, as if he stuck a flag in the highest mountain imaginable and he was basking in how it really felt to be on top of the world. Spending a few hours with them was enough for his dormant heart to keep beating steady, to keep his blood running and his outlook on everything more positive. He felt the urge to appreciate space more, really look at flowers when he passed them by, ask about tattoos and dyed hair, smile more.

The impact of seven strangers was overwhelming and San didn’t really know how to handle it all that well, but he was trying.

He was going to try harder for them.

“Sannie.” 

There’s a whisper from his right, either Yeosang or Seonghwa, that takes him out of his interstellar and he’s listening to the third movie playing in a row, listening to someone take a deep breath to his left, listening to feet shuffling in the blanket at the end of the couch. It was pitch black in here, save for the harsh corona of the television in front of them, but it was pleasant and he didn’t want to leave.

San turns in that direction, and sees Yeosang leaned up a bit past a sleeping Seonghwa, looking at him with inquiry, his eyebrows raised.

“I think you should take Wooyoung home before he falls asleep on the road. Can you drive?” He whispers, and San looks down at one hand in Wooyoung’s black hair, the other settled on his arm as if he would fall off if he didn’t hold onto him. Wooyoung had stopped moving a while ago, and San could feel his soft breaths on the knee of his black jeans as his chest rose and fell softly.

Oh.

“Y-yeah, but. I’m not sure if Woo would let me. Should I wake him up?”

Yeosang nods. “Jongho and Yunho are out, too. How late is it?”

San shrugs with the shake of his head. “Probably twelve?”

“We’re probably gonna go, too.”

Seonghwa shifts a little, leaning his head up from the back of the couch and stretching his arms out in front of him. Yeosang looks at him, and his eyes were tired but he was still trying to be present, like sparking flint but it wouldn’t ignite. San begins to work on Wooyoung, leaning over a bit and shaking him a little with his hand on his arm, brushing down his hair to help.

“Wooyoung? Woo, wake up, sunshine.”

Wooyoung shifts, and San hears another deep breath from the opposite end of the couch with Mingi and Yunho. 

“Are you guys awake?” Yunho asks, his voice much less excited and terribly exhausted, but it still manages to get Jongho to wake up, Hongjoong slumped onto his shoulder, cheek squished against the fabric of his shirt and his lips in a slight pout as he’s still watching the movie.

“Yeah, we are. I’m...I’m trying to get Wooyoung awake.”

“Good luck. That kid sleeps anywhere. Is he going to drive himself?” Yunho presses himself further into Mingi’s side, who is still invested in the movie, lights shimmering off of his specs and his sweater taking on a pretty purple hue from the television.

“I’m gonna see if he’d let me drive him.” San goes back to Wooyoung, bending down to his ear. “Wooyoung, wake up. I’m going to drive you home.”

Wooyoung opens his eyes slightly, dusked and weary, as he tries to get adjusted to the television light. He turns his body from the television and into San’s stomach, snuggling into his tummy and San jumps at the ticklish feeling and he giggles a little, embarrassed at the butterflies in his chest and _god,_ could Wooyoung stop humiliating him for one day?

“Woo, stop that! Come on. Yunho is tired.” San’s voice is still low, and Wooyoung’s shoulders are moving as he giggles into San’s tummy, and San pushes him away a little so that he could look at him.

“Don’t wanna move.”

“You gotta.”

“Uh-uh.”

“I’ll drive you home.”

Wooyoung sighs through his nose, and finds the willpower in him to get up, struggling and slumping into San a little and hanging his head, and San looks at his dark figure and notices the flashy hints of the silver necklace he wears under his shirt all the time, only noticing it a few times back at the cliff, or under the surveillance of the diner lights

He looks away.

“I can drive. I don’t want you to have to do that.”

“Will you be okay to drive yourself home?”

Wooyoung sighs again, rubbing his eyes and nodding his head, but it was minimal and San thinks he’d end up being too sleepy to move after he dropped him off. San swallows as he thinks, the question at the tip of his tongue but there’s the sour taste of apprehension that makes him swallow again, trying to get rid of it.

He can’t let Wooyoung drive home by himself, exhausted.

“Do you…” his tongue is literally tingling with nerves and he’s so scared of Wooyoung thinking he was weird. It was normal to ask this, right?

You ask your friends this, _right?_

“Do you wanna sleep over? You could wear my clothes as pajamas. If you’re too tired to, uh...to go home...after my house.”

Wooyoung smiles like pearls at the bottom of the sea, leaning off of San’s shoulder and rubbing at his eyes again.

“I think I’ll be okay after I drop you off, but...since you asked.”

“No, then go home! I only asked if you were tired!”

“So you don’t wanna have a slumber party with me? My heart is breaking.”

San groans, hiding his face in his hands once Yeosang and Seonghwa start laughing quietly at them, and Wooyoung throws an arm over San and lets him hide into his shirt, smiling into his hair.

“Come on, Moon. You walked right into that.”

“You’re the worst.”

And after Yunho gets up after much protest from Mingi, he turns the light on and San has never felt pain in his eyes like that in his life, turning off the television while Jongho and Hongjoong push each other to get up so they can go home together. San helped Yunho clean the living room as best as he could, and even though Yunho had tried to get him to stop, San insisted, and in turn, got Wooyoung to help them, too. 

Yunho gave San an appreciative smile as they cleaned, and another one as they left his house, into the thick darkness that late night had brought with it, the air stagnant again. He watches them leave, just in case something happens, his gaze almost forlorn, but San thinks he might be putting too much thought into it and he gets into Wooyoung’s car quickly so he wouldn’t fall asleep.

“Bye, Yunho. It was really nice meeting you!” San waves at him outside of the window, leaning out a little just in case he couldn't hear him, watching how the moon holds him in her hands and puts him in a powdery spotlight as the stars complement him, as if putting him on display to show off.

San would have believed it.

“You, too, Sannie. See you later, I can’t wait!”

And for the first time in a while, as San’s leaning back on the headrest and letting the choppy winds from early November strike through his hair and underneath his hat and not leaning on the window tonight, he truly can’t wait to see him again, either.


	10. cherry syrup and how wooyoung feels so much like home

“I have another question for you, San.”

San’s been caught up in how quiet the night had been, just how fast the sun fell tonight and just how slow time had gone, spending it with his friends.

_Friends._

That word tasted like cherry syrup whenever he said them out loud. San liked cherries a lot.

Here he was now, taking one of those same friends into his dark house, as if it belonged in a horror movie, just waiting to haunt anyone who came in. It was so desolate, and despite looking normal on the inside, San’s felt more pain here than he knew he should have. You’re supposed to love your home — San hated it unless he wasn't alone.

He lets Wooyoung follow him inside, leaving his sneakers by the door and heading straight to the kitchen. It’s only when he sees Wooyoung nearly beaming underneath the lights in his kitchen that he realizes he’s actually letting the infamous Jung Wooyoung sleep at his house. Where would he even sleep?

He didn’t even think this through. Typical.

“Yeah? Let’s hear it.” He says once he gets to his dish cabinet, opening it and reaching all the way to the middle shelf to grab a glass. 

He sounds almost too soft, as if he was nervous for what Wooyoung was going to ask (and quite frankly, he was — he hated being put on the spot like this).

“What do you love to do?”

San stops. That was such a simple question, yet San really had to think about it. He liked doing a lot of things, like sleeping, and reading, and watching cartoons on tv. But he knew that if he said that, it wouldn’t really mean anything. When people talk about the things they love to do, it always has some meaning behind it. 

San can only think of a couple of things that held heavy meaning to him, and saying Wooyoung’s name kind of seemed like overkill.

“I like…” _no, he said_ **_love,_ ** _what do we_ **_love_ ** _to do?_

San finds his answer in the ceiling of his kitchen, where there were dust bunnies collected in the corner and where the paint was kind of flaking off. 

“Dream.”

“Dream?” Wooyoung’s incredulous as he takes a seat at the island that the two sat at sometimes, becoming a secret hideout for them to eat dinner together and talk about the world and themselves and everything that happened to fall in between. With the way he sounded, San can tell he wasn’t understanding him again, like when he told him he read all day on his birthday or why he likes the smell of gasoline.

San nods, going to his fridge and taking out the remainder of the milk, sitting right in the middle where he’d left it last night. “I love to do it.”

“No, I meant like…” Wooyoung watches him shut the door to the fridge with his heel, finding it interesting how he needs to make this stupid drink every time he goes to sleep. Maybe even cute, but he’d never tell him. “I meant like a hobby.”

“Well, what is a hobby?” San doesn’t look back at Wooyoung as he pours the milk into the glass first, filling it about two thirds before he stops.

“Something you love to do.”

San shrugs, finding these conversations getting more and more stupid by the day the more he talks to Wooyoung. It was like running in circles, yet, with every round, the sky’s a different color, or he’s wearing different shoes. They were always interesting and San looked forward to them talking like this, if not, every day.

One-week-ago-San would never.

“Dreaming is my hobby.”

Wooyoung leans his weight on his elbows as he rests his arms on the island counter, shifting his butt to the left, then to the right, listening to the hollow creaking of the stool underneath him, like Yeosang had done back at the diner when they first met.

“I was thinking something along the lines of more conventional. Like painting. Reading, even.”

“I love to read, too. But not as much as I love dreaming.” San stirs the chocolate syrup in while he squeezes the bottle, turning the milk into a pretty shade of brown, little bubbles frothing at the top as the spoon hits the inside of the glass and lets a sound of chandeliers out into their space. “In fact, I dream while I read, and while I’m awake. And while I talk to you. And our friends.”

There’s that cherry syrup again.

“You’re dreaming right now?” Wooyoung asks, and San could practically see him tilt his head in curiosity as he looks at him, and for once, in the safety of his kitchen, he doesn't feel nervous under his eyes.

It almost felt like he belonged here with him.

“Yeah. But I’m not gonna tell you what about, s-so...so don’t ask.”

“I’m that predictable?” Wooyoung’s got one of those half-moon grins on his face that reminded San of astronomical twilight, the 18th degree of all of his spectral wonder and illustrious thought processes, all projected into how he’s looking at San at one o’clock on a Saturday morning.

San hides his smile behind his glass of chocolate milk as he turns to face him, taking in his messy sleep hair and how his eyes look lined with shadows as he looks across the room at him. He leans against the countertop and leans the heel of his right foot to the left. 

“Sometimes. It depends. Sometimes, I can’t read you. Sometimes, you’re unpredictable and it’s scary because I don’t know what you’re gonna do next.”

“But life is better with surprises, aren’t they?”

San takes another sip of his chocolate milk, finding his thoughts in the way Wooyoung leans back against the barstool, as if he owned it and the island and the kitchen and the entire world in itself, as if he was made for being looked at, his shirt rumpled against his chest and falling over his shoulder in the slightest, revealing more of the silver chain he liked to wear underneath his shirt.

It was hidden nearly all the time, and San always wondered what the point was if nobody was going to see it. He commented on it once. Wooyoung said it was like a secret, like how people have tattoos on their butts or how girls with long hair have undercuts. 

San remembers laughing at him.

“Maybe. I think you being a surprise is enough. Enough surprises for me.”

Wooyoung’s dark eyebrow raises, inquisitive and prodding and San could tell he’s going to be here for a while. His heart felt like kindled embers as it beat heavily in his chest, and he felt it in the veins in his arm and at the tips of his fingers as he held his chocolate milk. It was on the verge of falling if Wooyoung did anything to make him nervous, to just be moving or blinking a certain way and San wanted so badly for Wooyoung to stop whatever he was doing.

But exactly what was he doing? Breathing?

San doesn’t know how he got here.

“So I surprise you.”

San nods, and his chocolate milk is almost gone. “Sometimes.”

“What’s something that’s surprised you about me?”

San feels the corner of his mouth press into his cheek as it grows into a half-grin, shaking his head once at him.

“You just like hearing me talk about you.”

“Maybe just as much as I love hearing myself talk about you.”

“Jung Wooyoung. Being a flirt doesn’t look pretty on you.”

“But confidence does on you. It looks beautiful, Moon.”

San feels like he’s run into a brick wall, losing his appetite for his chocolate milk and for everything else for the next couple months or lifetimes or so. He looks into his chocolate milk, revels how the glass feels so cool in his hands, as if he was holding December and January and the beginning of February at his fingers’ expense as his body ignites. Such a simple remark, yet San felt like he was sizzling on a hot skillet. He swallows, lets his thoughts fill up the air for a moment before he remembers what he was supposed to be doing and looks at Wooyoung again. 

“To answer...your question.” How does Wooyoung break him down so easily? He would never get it. “I didn’t know you liked taking photos so much.”

“I think I love it just as much as you like to dream,” Wooyoung tells him, and he leans back in his barstool again and San wants to yell at him.

“Impossible.”

“No, I _really_ love taking photos of things. Nature, mostly.” Wooyoung looks to the ceiling for his thoughts to splay themselves out, and San hopes for a split second he doesn’t see the dust bunnies in the corner, good _god._ “Flowers and waterfalls are my absolute favorite. Or! When I bring my telescope camera thingy outside and I point it at the moon and the stars and I watch them for a bit before I take a picture!” Wooyoung’s losing himself now, the spark in his eye that San’s come to love in such a short span of time bouncing excitedly within him and he has horizons in his throat as he could almost see what he was talking about. San can’t stop staring at him, and it feels like they’re outside with auroras painted over them like magic. “You can never get a bad picture of the stars from here. It’s so pretty, San, I’ve gotta take you one day. There’s this wonderful spot that I know, a little ways out, but you see the moon so clearly and sometimes the northern lights come out or star showers and-”

San snaps out of his head once Wooyoung stops, blinking at him and breaking his train of thought. He gets embarrassed once he realizes he’d been spaced out, too caught up in Wooyoung’s art gallery of an imagination to notice. He thinks it’s so lovely how he likes the stars so much.

He was rubbing off on him.

“Were you listening to me, San?”

“W-what? Y-yeah. ‘Course I was.” San nods, and Wooyoung gives him a knowing look, San hiding behind his glass again as he drinks from it, and it wasn’t even good anymore but he finished it anyway, the bottom of his tummy aching a bit as his face flares.

He distracts himself from his humiliation by going to wash the glass, the sink completely dry.

“You seemed spaced out.” 

San shakes his head. “Sorry. I just...I wanna go to that spot with you one day.” 

He wasn’t going to tell Wooyoung the real reason. Getting lost in how he talked to him was one thing, but getting lost in the boy itself was a whole different ballgame and San found himself in the diamond way too often recently. There were so many things about Wooyoung that San would love to learn about, as if he was a custom piece of literature written only for him to read. 

And as he washes his glass way more times than he knew he needed to, he decided that he would hold onto him for as long as he could.

~☾~

San’s reading one of his ten fiction books by the time three in the morning rolls around.

The weight of sleep was heavy on him, dragging his eyelids down and clogging his nose with the urge to turn himself off, but he was getting to a very good part in this story and he was sure as hell going to finish it. The book light he’d been using was doing a good job of helping him stay awake, and the alternate universe he’d plunged himself into was like caffeine.

And when the sky tore and the first light sprinkles of rain began to hit his window, he knew he was more than screwed. There was something about rain and sleep that went way too well together, nearly criminal in how perfectly it got San to put his book back into his nightstand drawer along with his specs and shut the book light off.

His blankets were more than welcoming on top of everything else, and there was a faint boom of thunder that hummed into his head, resonating with his bones and soaking into his blood like poison. The haunting shadow of exhaustion was filling, and as soon as he covers himself to his mouth with his comforter, he sinks. 

This type of tiredness was different and was the perfect end to a good day like this.

It takes what seems like less than two seconds before he’s slightly irritated as his door creaks open, and it’s only when he sees someone there, a pillow to his chest and San’s biggest oversized shirt draped over him with fuzzy socks against his tile, that he remembers Wooyoung was here. 

_Wooyoung was here._

San sits up quickly, not wanting Wooyoung to see how terrible he looked on the brink of sleep deprivation as if the night wasn’t obscuring any kind of light the early morning squeezed out. He’s a bit blurry, but it’s not like he’d be able to see him in the pitch darkness of his room, regardless. The rain was getting heavier now, hitting his window and the top of his roof, and he almost felt it in his chest, how vast the storms can make things.

“Woo?”

“Hello.”

San blinks at him, and the images are fuzzy but it comes to him with time. The chocolate milk, their meaningful and meaningless conversations, the antics before he went to bed, couch Wooyoung had been sleeping on.

“Is the couch too uncomfortable? I-I’m sorry. I should have slept down there.” San’s washed over with guilt now, and he feels like one of those pink neon signs he sees at sketchy clubs or retro food places, there and attention-grabbing and completely prominent as his voice gave way to his culpability.

“N-no, it’s okay! It’s not the couch...there’s just—”

A slow thunder interrupts him, and San sees how his grip in the pillow against his chest has tightened, and it reminds San so much of adolescence and how good it was to be a kid again. Something about Wooyoung was always so exciting, and even now, when San could tell he was afraid of storms, it reminded him of picture books. 

Maybe even of his mom.

San couldn’t let him stay out there by himself anyway, but he hated the other option just as much because he knew he’d be a mess in front of him if they stayed up together and he doesn’t know exactly how much humiliation he could take in one day. He was _just_ about to go to sleep.

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of thunderstorms.”

“Okay. I won’t tell you.”

San is on overdrive again, Wooyoung antipodal in the faded darkness of his bedroom, and he sighs softly, too tired to talk more than he needed to. He decides to just block the doubts that were poking at his head, peeling his blankets back a little, his bones heavy like driftwood as he scoots back a bit to give Wooyoung some room.

“Can’t believe you.” San is half-joking, but half not as the urge to sleep was quickly diminishing and being replaced by panic and _god,_ San just wanted to go to bed.

“It’s too loud! It scares me.” Wooyoung whispers harshly, as if there were other people in the house that he would wake up if he spoke any louder. 

He’s facing San as he throws the blanket over them, and then they fall quiet, San not sure what to do next. Wooyoung rests his head into the pillow he was holding, bringing his legs up slightly and curling into it a little, and San thinks that if he listened hard enough, he could hear Wooyoung’s heart pounding through the rain.

He feels bad.

“Did you get any—”

Thunder breaks them, and Wooyoung cowers into his pillow, hiding his eyes into it and San takes a moment to think. He’d never seen Wooyoung this vulnerable before. He didn’t know exactly what to do; looking at him he would have never guessed he was afraid of storms. He would have researched what to do for him before inviting him to a sleepover or _something._

But as much as Wooyoung had been there for him, San can’t think of a better opportunity to do the same.

He scoots closer to him, apprehension settling into his skin, feeling Wooyoung’s hair brushing over his chin and his throat, and he throws an arm on the pillow beside him and the other around Wooyoung’s waist, pulling himself to him and closing the gap between Wooyoung and his pillow. Wooyoung brings the pillow up, nearly too fast for San’s sleepy head to really register, and it’s only when he feels his soft breaths on his neck and the weight of Wooyoung’s head on his arm that goosebumps litter his skin like dandelion fields in the April swelter, and he gets nervous again.

His heart is beating against his in a way that seems surreal, and he’s not sure if Wooyoung would feel it but he really hoped to everything good that he didn’t. He bends his arm at the elbow and brings his hand up to lightly brush Wooyoung’s hair, just to let him know that he was okay, too.

“Are you alright, Woo?” San asks, his voice low, and Wooyoung has his face hidden in his chest but he nods anyway, tightening his grip in the fabric of his shirt once the thunder gets worse, and the rain claps harder on San’s window, like the end of a Shakespearean play in the way it wouldn’t stop and was beginning to get suffocating for him.

“I’m gonna wait for you to fall asleep, okay?” San tells him, the urge to rest out the window as nerves set in and he feels just like the grey clouds outside, unpredictable in the way he was feeling but he was spilling everything into the way Wooyoung was holding him and his heart felt like it was slowing down. 

He didn’t know if he should be concerned or not.

Wooyoung nods again. “Thank you.”

And as San stares into his violet wall and the rain buries them in a song of its own, wraps them in the sweet yet harsh and crushing melodies that San loved to listen to by himself, as he’s holding Wooyoung and shielding his matchstick spark from the relentless extinguish outside, as his heart flutters like a moth to a heat lamp against him, San suddenly feels at home. 

For the first time in a while, he really feels at _home,_ and he doesn't know if Jung Wooyoung knew just how much he meant to him in a time like this.


	11. jongho and how good they were for each other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here is a tiny little filler
> 
> pls be careful, this contains a little past tense violence. pls keep yourself safe and if you want to skip this chapter please do so!
> 
> enjoy!

Jongho, he was sweet.

Childlike in every way, yet the most mature out of all of them when it comes down to something important, or the way he carried himself. He was a midnight sunrise, broken light in the way he smiled, the silvery moon filtering to the bottom of the sea when he laughed, fingertips of gold and arms of silver and San felt like precious gems when he pulled him in for a hug first thing in the mornings.

Every day, he would sit down and eat with him, take him from the direction he was headed (to the library, of course) and drag him to a seat with him in the cafeteria. Every day, he would walk him to class, throw his arm around him down the hallway and tell him a story about his teachers to take up the space San’s left for him to do so. Every day, he would run up to him and tell him how his day was, and when he would ask San in return, he would tell him, too. They came out in frugal sentences, but Jongho didn’t mind the toll, and in fact, San thinks he’s just like Wooyoung in a way where they completed each other. 

Perfect, as Jongho had cloud iridescence and sun glitters on his tongue while San carried mirages and diamond dust in his chest.

It was a Friday afternoon when Jongho had been looking for him after school, and he found him with his eye bruised and his nose bloodied walking past the restrooms, greyed, as if he was just another silhouette to pass by, like he blended in with the shadows that took up the corners of the hallway. Jongho was angry, but he didn’t know exactly at who, or what, yet. San felt like burning asphalt when he sees Jongho’s face distort and he could feel the heat between them as he pulled him past the bathroom door that day.

He couldn’t confront whoever did it anyway, Jongho didn’t even know who he was. But he got angrier the more he asked about it, about what happened and who did it and  _ what his fucking name was _ , and San wouldn’t give him up. 

It was that Friday afternoon when Jongho decided San was too good to people who especially didn’t deserve it, to not want to tell him who he was as he cleaned up his face in the bathroom past the late bell for after school clubs. He thinks San should have been just as angry, if not, fuming with more of a fervor than he had been, but he wouldn’t be mean about it, no matter how much Jongho shouted about it or questioned him, even if the boy wasn’t there to hear it.

“You’re too forgiving, San,” Jongho tells him, shaking his head once as San’s blood had tinted the second wet paper towel he’d held to his nose, his eyebrows together and there was lightning behind his stormy eyes and San didn’t like seeing Jongho so upset for him.

He shut his eyes, grimacing a little as Jongho wiped the rest of the dried blood from under his nose, feeling numb and his bottom lashes were slightly clumped together from involuntary tears. San shrugged, and he carefully thought of what to say, as if he was entering yellow police cautioned tape and there were sirens behind him and flashing lights right in front of him. He shrugs, hearing Jongho turn the faucet on again, the water trickling over his fingers as he yanked another brown paper towel from the dispenser beside San’s head, wetting it under the faucet.

“Maybe he was going through something today.”

“So it’s okay for him to nearly break your nose and fuck up your eye?”

Jongho’s tone, it felt like a grater to his skin, sensitive and uncomfortable and he nearly grimaced at his voice. San hated it.

“There are people here who have it much worse. I don’t know them but I’m sure there are kids who actually have their noses broken by this guy every time they get it fixed.” San keeps his eyes shut, and in the dark, he sees himself getting hit once, then twice, and he grimaces again when Jongho holds the paper towel to his nose.

“How long until you end up like one of those kids, then?”

San is quiet. He senses the light in the bathroom get dimmed as a cloud slowly passes over the sun, and he practically feels how cold it truly was in here for that moment. 

“It’s okay. I’m not upset with him.”

Jongho shakes his head, irritation quivering his lip and eyebrows coming together again as he looks at how serene San looked as he was cleaning him, how peaceful he was while his eye had been painted three different shades of violet and how there was a crimson honey stain on his skin beneath his nose, how  _ fine  _ he was with all of this. 

That one Friday afternoon, Jongho gets upset with San for the first and last time.

San doesn’t know what happened after they went their separate ways, after he met with Wooyoung and he trapped him in a balloon with suffocating latex questions and rubber concerns. Jongho wouldn’t tell him what he did when he asked the following Monday. But he stopped seeing the boy around so much. And sometimes, the boy would look at him, as if he wanted to say something or punch him across the face again, but he never did. 

He’d always kept walking.

Jongho meant a lot to San, and Jongho knew it. He just didn’t know if San realized how much he meant to him on the other hand, too.


	12. the groupchat and how jackson wang's party was this saturday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi u guys!!
> 
> i've been working a lot on this fic and i'm super excited that it's done! as if this wasn't a long read already,,,, i have written thirteen more chapters on top of the eleven that had been published im so sorry fsdhfsjd
> 
> i know that sometimes the gc can be weird to put in here, but i like to do them as a kind of break from all the paragraphs and heavy reading and stuff like that. i have a few more chapters of just the gc but if u would rather me not include them anymore and would just like me to update just the writing, please let me know! 
> 
> but i just wanted to say again - thank u so very much for taking the time to read and letting me know how u like this so far. i've been kind of unsure about this au so you guys telling me you like it so far??? means the world to me. honestly. i know it's not that serious, but i really enjoy writing and just want people to enjoy reading what i put out, you know?? and it's very motivating to hear from you SO THANK YOU I APPRECIATE IT A TON!!! <333 
> 
> enjoy!
> 
> p.s. this is in san's perspective so the names are a little different! and it might b a little vulgar pls don't read if you'd rather not!!

**yeo!** added **You** to the conversation.

 **yeo!** added **yu** to the conversation.

 **yeo!** added **apple** to the conversation.

 **yeo!** added **hwa** to the conversation.

 **yeo!** added **8375827582** to the conversation.

 **yeo!** added **0175827592** to the conversation.

 **yeo!** added **woo** to the conversation.

 **yeo!** named the conversation **horres 2.0**

 **yeo!:** _SANNIE!!!_

 **apple:** _omg u added san??? WITHOUT HIS PERSIMMON_

 **0175827592:** _did this bitch say persimmon_

 **yu:** _sweet child, the love of my life, u bout dumb as hell_

 **8375827582:** _JSFJSJSJF DONT BULLY HIM_

 **yeo!:** _DONT SPEAK TO ME OR MY SON EVER AGAIN1!1!1!!!!_

 **woo:** _who gon tell him_

 **woo:** _also hello san_

 **woo:** _i promise i did not put yeosang up to this_

 **woo:** _pls dont feel forced to stay_

**_wow i cant believe ur kicking me out already_ **

**0175827592:** _WOOYOUNG SHUT THE HELL UP B4 HE LEAVES_

**_is this THE groupchat that u warned me about wooyoung_ **

**woo:** _yes :(_

 **8375827582:** _yes welcome u are now a bad bitch_

 **apple:** _swagged_

 **apple:** _anyway who added him without his persimmon_

 **yeo!:** _PERMISSION IM GONNA FUCKING EAT YOU_

 **yu:** _vore yeosang vore yeosang_

 **8375827582:** _HI SAN THIS IS MINGI SAVE MY NUMBER!!_

 **woo:** _im hungry lowkey_

 **yeo!:** _we are a fucking mess san i am so sorry_

**_it is okay_ **

**_u guys r cute!!_ **

**0175827592:** _omg no u_

 **apple:** _NO U_

 **yu:** _no u <333 _

**apple:** _nvm i dont wanna share a braincell with hongjoong and yunho_

 **0175827592:** _bold of u to assume i have a braincell to share_

 **flower boy mingi:** _jongho u said persimmon twice pls have a seat_

 **apple:** _SHUT UP IT WAS A TYPO I HATE IT HERE_

 **apple:** _anyway san i am jongho im the one who put u on pineapple pizza_

**_ofc i have ur number dummy_ **

**_i see u LITERALLY everyday_ **

**_and the pizza_ ** **_was delicious btw!!_ **

**_i think i might order one,,, now_ **

**woo:** _pineapple pizza???? san i thought u were stronger than that_

**_dont b mad bc u dont have taste!_ **

**_u always get chicken tenders and fries when we go out! expand ur mind!!_ **

**yu:** _YEAH GET HIM SAN_

 **apple:** _LET EM KNOWWWW_

 **woo:** _STOP BULLYING ME!!!_

 **woo:** _i dont wanna waste money on things i wont like!_

**_inch resting_ **

**_good thing i make food for free!_ **

**woo:** _it sounds like u want me to come over right now_

**_it sounds like u are right_ **

**woo:** _it sounds like i’ll be there in two minutes_

 **hwa:** _what goes on_

 **hwa:** _OMG SAN IS HERE????_

 **hwa:** _hi sweet pea!!!!_

**_hello hwa!! <333_ **

**_also hi mingi i saved your number!! i didnt mean to ignore u :((_ **

**flower boy mingi:** _its okay lovely!!_

 **yu:** _stop stealing my boyfriend san!_

**_im tryna steal u ;)_ **

**yu:** _oH_

 **apple:** _EYE-_

 **flower boy mingi:** _who r u and what did u do with san_

 **yu:** _introverts r fucking savages thru text im telling u_

 **flower boy mingi:** _do u remember when we first added jongho and he wouldnt talk to us at all but then hongjoong started making fun of people who do sudoku puzzles and then he called him a bitch_

 **woo:** _I REMEMBER THATTTT_

 **woo:** _jongho really,,,,, he didn’t hold back at all_

**_would b too scared to call anyone a bitch_ **

**apple:** _san ur a bitch_

**_FUCK YOU_ **

**0175827592:** _JOGNHOODNEI_

 **yu:** _JNGHO_

 **apple:** _IM KIDDING SAN KNOWS_

 **apple:** _dude me and san r best buddies we eat lunch together EVERYDAY_

 **apple:** _AND WHAT ARE U GUYS DOING_

 **apple:** _texts. exactly._

 **woo:** _when ur done bRAGGING id like to know if there r any parties coming up soon_

 **0175827592:** _hello san am hongjoong_

 **0175827592:** _the boy with red hair idk if u remembered_

**_how could i forget!_ **

**yu:** _PARTY!! ＼（＾○＾）人（＾○＾）／_

 **hwa:** _jacksons throwing one on sat i think_

 **hwa:** _issa small one_

 **hwa:** _bk and sehyoon told me about it but like_

 **hwa:** _idk if we should go_

 **flower boy mingi:** _if jacksons throwing it we have to_

 **flower boy mingi:** _that man throws parties for everything all the time_

 **flower boy mingi:** _like there is not one instance when it’s not jackson throwing the party_

 **woo:** _PLUS he’s in college so it’s gonna b fun!_

 **joong:** _i’ll be designated driver im not drinking fuck that_

 **joong:** _if u guys want heartburn and vodka burps at 11pm thats on U_

 **yeo!:** _okay grandma_

 **apple:** _whomst is this jackson_

**_bk and sehyoon kim??? the brothers right??_ **

**_cant 4get ab third brother mj kim_ **

**hwa:** _yes!_

 **hwa:** _god i love mj kim_

 **yeo!:** _mj kim bullied me once :(( i was wearing new pants and i was like hey do u like my pants and he said no never wear those pants again and it made me sad :(_

 **hwa:** _babe,,, those pants were terrible_

 **yu:** _too many zippers_

 **flower boy mingi:** _how did u even get that belt in there the loops were nonexistent_

 **woo:** _couldnt tell if they were waist high or tiddy high_

 **apple:** _they didnt even match ur fit_

 **yeo!:** _OKAY THATS ENOUGH KIM MYUNGJUNS_

 **yeo!:** _ANYWAY_

 **hwa:** _everyone in here is going to the party right_

 **flower boy mingi:** _ofc!_

 **yu:** _yeth_

 **apple:** _i’ll go but pls protect me i’m scared of college parties_

 **joong:** _i’ll stay with u but if theres a snack table imma have to leave u_

 **apple:** _i wont even be mad if u do i understand_

 **yeo!:** _yes if u guys go_

 **hwa:** _i kinda already told bk i’d go_

 **hwa:** _so like i kinda have to_

 **woo:** _san are u gonna go??_

**_uhhh_ **

**yu:** _(◕︿◕✿)_

 **flower boy mingi:** _sannnn_

**_UHHHHH_ **

**_i dont wanna be a pooper but uh_ **

**_i’ll b there in spirit!_ **

**woo:** _can u guys hear that_

 **woo:** _the sound of my heart breaking_

**_WOOYOUNGGGG_ **

**apple:** _cannot believe my own best friend leaving me at a party with these losers_

**_im sorry jongho i really do love u tho_ **

**_sometimes u gotta let go of the things u love_ **

**flower boy mingi:** _san shut uP_

 **flower boy mingi:** _pls come_

**_suddenly my connection is bad_ **

**_cannot see ur texts oh noooooo_ **

**woo:** _fake_

 **woo:** _wait can i still come over_

**_yes but only if we order pineapple pizza_ **

**woo:** _NOOOOOOOOOO_


	13. minhyuk and how bright the moon can be

**woo:** _san san san_

 **woo:** _were going to the party tonight!_

 **woo:** _pls tell me u changed ur mind and want to come with us_

**_no thank u_ **

**woo:** _pleaseeee_

 **woo:** _we’ll stick together!_

 **woo:** _djdn_

 **woo:** _j_

 **woo:** _sannie! this is yeosang i fought for woos phone but pls come i wanna see u!_

 **woo:** _HI SWEET PEA!! U DONT HAVE TO COME IF U DONT WANT TO NO PRESSURE BUT I MISS U_

 **woo:** _jfso_

 **woo:** _s_

 **woo:** _hey sannie!! love of my life!!! its ur bff jongho pls come i wanna c u >:| lets fuck some shit up!!! _

**woo:** _SANNIEEEE_

 **woo:** _ITS YUNHO U BETTER COME OR ELSE i’ll cry ●︿●_

 **woo:** _omg okay im back its me its wooyoung_

 **woo:** _its okay moon u dont have to come if u dont wanna_

 **woo:** _were really gonna miss u_

 **woo:** _o(╥﹏╥)o_

**_god_ **

**_u guys make it really hard to say no huh_ **

**_ughhhh_ **

**_i’ll go_ **

**_don’t pick me up! i’ll walk to ur house and then we could go together, okay?_ **

**woo:** _:0 REALLY???_

 **woo:** _YAYYY_

 **woo:** _OKOK WERE READY BC IT ALREADY STARTED BUT WE WILL WAIT FOR U!!_

 **woo:** _EVERYONE IS HERE ALREADY_

**_WAIT WOOYOUNG WHAT DO I WEAR_ **

**woo:** _UHHHH IDK_

 **woo:** _WEAR SOMETHING HOT!_

**_LIKE WHTA_ **

**woo:** _[view image]_

 **woo:** _THIS IS WHAT YUNHO AND JONGHO ARE WEARING_

 **woo:** _ITS JUST A COLLEGE PARTY DONT BE TOO FORMAL_

 **woo:** _once i went to my first hs party in a button down and slacks and everyone made fun of me >:| _

**_SLACKS_ **

**woo:** _dONT BULLY ME I WAS NERVOUS_

**_i’m on my way!_ **

**_c u soon_ **

~☾~

By the time they all got there, when the night had melted away the heat of the afternoon and the moon cooled over their starry eyes, Yeosang and Seonghwa had made a beeline straight to the drink table, disappearing into the crowd and dragging Mingi and Yunho along with them. 

The air in here was stark, blue lights dragging over plastered faces and runny mascara, golden confetti sprinkled into tables and decorating the floor, like jagged crystals at the bottom of caves. San instantly felt uncomfortable as he’s showered in heavy EDM when he stepped through the door, almost getting high off of the sidechain beat rattling his bones, never being one to like parties to begin with. It hadn’t been as loud as he’d expected, but it was enough to get him a little concerned for anyone living next door. Wooyoung opted to stay with him, their arms pressed against each other to keep track as they squeezed into the crowd of drunk college kids, not really having any general direction to go. They blended in well, though, dark colors and wandering eyes, San taking this as a good opportunity to not talk to anyone he didn’t know tonight.

Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

“Let’s go outside? It’s quieter.” Wooyoung places his hand in the middle of San’s back for him to know that he was still there with him, leaning down to San’s ear and speaking to him at a normal volume, his perfume filling his nose as he looks down at his old white shoes, Wooyoung’s hand igniting fires under his skin.

San only nods, feeling too nervous to speak, passing a drink table with a red cooler that masked cheap confidence and hangovers first thing in the morning inside of it, recognizing three girls from his macro class taking a photo against the wall, streamers and balloons right beside them as another blue light strobes over their faces. He’d never been to a party where people looked like they’d come for the fun, rather than the liquor or the THC disguised in four different forms.

This was good.

Wooyoung led San outside, past the open sliding glass door and into the gazes of the stars, the moon halved and brighter than he usually saw on nights like this. The grass had taken on a navy hue, the pool back here illuminated as underwater lights cut through the water and into the sky. There were fewer people out here, the music diminishing the farther they’d gotten away from it as people kept to their groups or to themselves. San’s ears were filled with the echoes of the speakers soaking into him and the light murmurs of conversations beside him as he went with Wooyoung wherever he was taking him. 

He figures he’d know Jackson’s place a little more than he would. 

San spots someone sitting on the only bench he’d been looking for by himself, a red cup in his hand as it lazily rests on the knee of his ripped black jeans, probably filled with punch or alcohol that San couldn’t pronounce. They make eye contact for a moment, and in that, as San’s stuck in his piercing, resin honeyed gaze, San feels ice run down his back, like he’d been wading into the shores of the Arctic and he suddenly slipped into the water.

He looks away almost as quickly as he’d seen him, his heart feeling numb in his chest as the boy's eyes singe him.

“Ah, I thought there’d be a drink table here, too.” Wooyoung’s voice is masked by the deadened rhythms of the music inside, the image of smeared red lipstick and glitzy bra tops in San’s head as they find the firepit, vacant and right in front of a hedge separating his backyard to the neighbor’s. San runs his hand over the pretty mosaic design on it, feeling the grit and cool tiles under his fingers and how they were nullified under the moon tonight, and he almost wishes it was daytime so he could _really_ see it, before turning and sitting against it, looking up at Wooyoung and taking in his muddled silhouette.

He almost looked like a specter, and it made him that much more mysterious to San because, despite everything he knew about Wooyoung so far, there was the umbral mask of him that San didn’t know anything about. He guessed it was the same for him, on Wooyoung’s side of things, maybe even more. And even now, as Wooyoung’s facing him and he was silent under the stars, San was wondering about him.

“I’ll wait here for you,” San tells him, and it’s then when he realizes Wooyoung hasn’t gone to dance or to make friends, maybe try and push him to go with him to chug drinks or something, like he’d expected him to.

He thinks they were similar in the fact that they didn’t do much at parties, either.

“Do you want anything?” He asks politely, and San shakes his head, the glint of the pool lights in the corner of his eye distracting him, magnified as it bounced off of his frames.

“Nah, I…” San looks sheepish, and as he feels the moon watch him with that boy sitting in the corner, it felt like Wooyoung was nearly listening too close to him. It was a high school party, he was _supposed_ to drink and was _supposed_ to fill his lungs with laced addiction and he was _supposed_ to hook up with a random boy by the end of the night.

But...he just didn’t want to upset his mom. And he knows it’s stupid to think like that, but still.

“Not tonight. I just…” San looks at the grass below him, shaking his head softly. “Yeah, not tonight.”

Wooyoung nods, and as San looks at his shoes again, tapping the toe of his right foot against the brick of the backyard patio they were in, he gets it. San was still so good, even when the lights were off and nobody was really paying attention to him, or what he did or how he felt. 

Wooyoung almost envied him for it.

“I’ll be back. I’ll grab you a cup of water so you look cool.” Wooyoung sends him a wink and turns before he could get a reaction from him, while San feels like a red train signal, heavy and quick and it screwed up his head so much that he doesn’t even thank him or anything. The wind in him is gone, and he feels like such an idiot as he’s blushing underneath the navy ruse of a late Saturday while Wooyoung disappears into the house to go get him _water._

San focuses on breathing, puts his attention into the flooring of the backyard, how the sandstone bricks were nicely patterned into each other and how it ended at the grass, a little taller than in the front yard, as he’d noticed. He pulls his phone out of the back pocket of his blue jeans, checking the time (and using it as an excuse for anyone noticing him and thinking he came here alone).

It was 11:06pm. 

He hears a girl laugh at something, by the sliding glass door, and soon, the backyard is bustling with the quiet voices of the very few groups out here as San falls silent and listens. He scrolls aimlessly through his four pages of apps, the idea of color-coding them running through his head, or maybe organizing them alphabetically.

San thinks this is probably the quickest he’s ever gotten this bored, ever.

The clock changes to 11:07.

“Hey. What’s your name?” 

That voice, offshore and punctuating, kicks San out of his orbit, spirals him into the universes of his nerves and anxieties as he doesn’t recognize it at all. He quickly locks his phone and gives whoever is speaking to him his attention because he didn’t want to be rude, but he knew his plans of being a bonafide introvert were ruined and it kind of bummed him out the more he stood out here. 

This boy, he’s got the prettiest shaped eyes San has ever seen, and even as dim as it was in the nighttime, his brown eyes still sparked silver. He reminded him of Wooyoung in a way, how they looked like they were made of incandescence even when it was seemingly impossible with how dark it was outside. His lips were dusted a lovely pink, and San noticed them second as they curled into a smile, glossed over and highlighting his words so smoothly, it was hard to ignore him.

He swallows.

“Uh...S-San. My name’s San.”

“I couldn’t help but notice you tonight, San. You look really nice.” The boy smiles and his dark eyebrow peaks once, and he looks at San like he belonged displayed in an expensive store or in a locked treasure chest.

San’s heart sinks, and he blinks at him once, trying to find any trace of jest or mockery in the way he held himself together, knowing to look out for people making fun of him just because they felt like it, but he couldn’t, and it freaked him out in every way that someone came to talk to him tonight, without him trying to get their attention. He swallows, not sure what to say, trying to go back to the high school movies where this exact scenario would happen and figure it out, but he comes up short.

San noticed Minhyuk’s hair was black too, and it seemed like everyone who intimidated him had been cast in a shadowy and scary color. 

They were villains.

It was then when San remembered his hair was black, too, and he threw the entire thought away as quickly as he had begun.

He also found it a little weird how he came up to him, considering he was just wearing a black flowery shirt and jeans with holes in it that looked like he found them in the trash compared to what other boys his age probably wore. 

Maybe it was his glasses.

“Th-thank you. I’m…” San’s nervous when his brain sidesteps and he loses his train of thought again, Minhyuk standing in front of him as if he owned the world and he never had any time to wait. It felt as if, for San, he made exceptions. “What’s your name?”

“Minhyuk. I’m a fourth year.”

San swallows again, watches how the wind picks up his thin, white button-down, how it peaks back over his tanned skin and how there were silver body chains underneath the low dip where he had undone some extra buttons. San can’t really think yet, but he _does_ know that it’s so immature of him to be this flustered over this boy he just met. Is that what was supposed to happen today? Some guy making him anxious at a college party over a conversation about _school?_

Come on.

“Y-you go to Carter?” 

Minhyuk nods, and when he sees just how skittish he was making San just by talking to him about a topic this mundane, he smirks as his confidence grows tenfold and San doesn’t know how much he could take from him.

“You’ve never had a boyfriend before, have you?”

And San begins to sweat because that was such a personal question and he never expected anything out of this, but _god,_ if he didn’t expect that. He’s so easy to read by seemingly anyone who talked to him for five minutes, and it kind of made him mad.

“It’s really that obvious?”

Minhyuk tilts his head, one dark eyebrow raised again and with the way he never changed how he was standing puts San at a compromise between intimidation and curiosity that he hoped wouldn’t get the better of him as the night unraveled. And even in his head like this, there was the obstacle of guilt that stemmed from somewhere in his chest that he knew would ultimately make him say no, if he even asked at all tonight.

“You want one?” 

Minhyuk has that risky smirk again, and there was something about his near-perfect demeanor that made San feel weary and small. And Minhyuk didn’t even mean to make him feel weak, he was just _smiling_ with his hands in the pockets of his black jeans while the chains over his chest glinted in the moonlight like shimmer on ocean waves at low tide. 

His chest is nearly burning as Minhyuk steps a little closer to him, and San smells a nice cologne that suited him perfectly, reminding him of empty hotel suites or a suitcase full of money. He feels trapped, like he’d stepped on flypaper, and part of him wanted to reject him while the other, majority of him was inquisitively frightened by him, just in the way he looked. 

He didn’t know Minhyuk at all. But he was nice-looking, charming and bold and cautious all at once. 

It was interesting.

“I, uh...I kinda came here...with someone.” San tells him, slightly turning his face away from Minhyuk when he leans down, with zero intent to do anything other than talk but Minhyuk wasn’t new to this and in fact, he loved meeting new people, loved seeing how far he could get on a first-meet basis without overstepping anything.

Loved it almost too much.

And as Minhyuk is terrifying him in a sickeningly hooking way and backing him into corners, he hears the faint sound of the sliding glass door open again, and Wooyoung’s there, his dark jacket reflecting a skewed version of the moon as he comes over, holding a can and a red cup. He notices Minhyuk and then he glances at San stiffly, but San looks away too quickly when he thinks that Minhyuk would notice he wasn’t paying attention to him. His face is fevered, nerves coiling in his blood as Wooyoung comes up beside him, handing him a cup half full of water and making Minhyuk lose his train of thought, beginning to feel weird now that he was here.

There was something in his eyes as he looked at him, but he steps back anyway.

“You’re with him?” Minhyuk asks softly against San’s ear, goosebumps dressing over his skin, gesturing to Wooyoung, and he shoves his left hand in his back pocket and there’s a tinge in his voice that reminded San of lemon rinds as Wooyoung takes a sip from the can he was holding, pulling out his phone and feeling awkward, as if he just walked in on something he shouldn’t.

Hm.

Wooyoung pretended not to listen, pretended not to be investing the entirety of his attention into what San would do, if he would do anything at all, sitting against the firepit on his phone to let San know he was still there for him but didn’t care so much about what they were talking about (but he did, very much so). San nods, looking down into his water cup, resembling sunglint in the silvery shade the moon had injected into the night.

“Yeah.”

Minhyuk nods once, before stepping back completely and walking away from the two of them, San slightly confused and kind of flustered before a wave of relief floods over his head, thanking whatever exists that he didn’t have to talk to anyone he didn’t know more than he could handle.

“Jeez.” San shakes his head, allowing himself to drink his water as if Minhyuk had a hold over more than his attention, his hand kind of shaking as he watches him walk past the sliding glass door and disappear into the darkness of the house, the ghost of his intimidation still in his ear.

“You know he meant like...dating, right?” 

San feels that word echo in his head, his water shooting down his throat. He takes a second, with wide eyes, to swallow the rest of his water before he choked on it, feeling his heart heavy in his chest.

“He _what?_ Are you—” San doesn’t know how Wooyoung could be laughing at him right now, hiding his face in his free hand, feeling his eyes glass over and his face was on fire as he registers exactly what he meant and how Minhyuk said it to the extent that it _should_ have been something he would know by now. “Oh, my god.”

“Come on, Moon. You gotta take social cues.” Wooyoung stood up and took a few steps so that he was in front of him again, locking his phone and sliding it into the back pocket of his black jeans, the logo on the blue can he was holding familiar.

San drowns his embarrassment in the water he’d gotten again, cold and definitely needed on a night like this. The smell of charcoal is carried through the breezes from the east, someone else probably having a party down the street. 

It makes him feel better, makes him feel at home, knowing that other people were alive and sharing some sort of fun, too.

“See what happens when you leave me alone?” San asks, half-joking but mostly not really, and he feels lame for needing a friend around so people wouldn’t bother him.

And by bother, he meant to flirt. He was terrible at flirting.

Wooyoung flicks his tongue over his lips as he takes another sip of beer, glancing at San's mouth as he speaks, before he smiles and looks at the sandstone bricks below San’s shoes. San could tell Wooyoung was thinking; he’s only ever seen Wooyoung break down in nervousness only twice, and even then, it was nowhere near noticeable compared to him. But then he thinks — is he really making Wooyoung nervous, just by talking to him tonight?

There’s got to be another reason.

Something arises in San’s chest that makes him want to push it, to see him, to know if he had the same effect on Wooyoung as he did on him. But he knows he’d never be able to pull something as elaborate as that off anytime soon.

Confidence on him? He almost wants to laugh.

“From now on, I think we should just never leave each other. I’m literally going home with you in the car.”

San’s less embarrassed, Wooyoung having a knack for making certain situations less awkward than they really were, changing the subject and letting San try to focus on something else. It was kind of hard to, but he tried anyway, and San appreciated it.

“Another...another slumber party, huh?” San presses his fingers to his glasses to push them back up the bridge of his nose, falling a little from how many instances he’s been too afraid to look someone in the eye today, and him not noticing how much they’ve moved from his jail time with Minhyuk.

San thinks that maybe he dramatized things a little too much.

“No thunderstorms this time.”

San smiles, nodding, the memory of sleeping with Wooyoung that night making a carmine blush dust across his cheeks. “No thunderstorms this time.”

Wooyoung grins again, one of those small and coy ones that reminded him of seashells, and he can’t help but watch him under the nightfall’s radiance. There was something about him, in his black clothes and even darker messed hair and smoked makeup on his waterline that made San _want._ He didn’t know exactly what, but he just _wanted_ and he thinks that’s the reason why Jung Wooyoung was too dangerous for someone like him.

He felt himself flying too close to the sun again.

“I forgot to tell you thanks. For the water. And that you look really nice tonight. I like the makeup.” San gestures to his eyes as if Wooyoung wouldn’t be able to hear him, though the music was muffled and it was calmer out here.

Wooyoung gets shy again, and San wants to know every secret of the universe that it took to poke through Wooyoung’s confidence with a thin needle like this and see him vulnerable as easily as he had done to him for the past few weeks. 

San didn’t know if it made sense to him to be thinking like this. It was nice to see Wooyoung being shy, for once.

“You’re welcome. And thank you.” Wooyoung looks up at him, and San sees his eyes flick down to his lips again before they stop at his eyes for once, and San’s chest feels of feathers as he raises a dark eyebrow, gesturing to the house. “Yunho said it would look good. I trusted him.”

San nods. “He’s good.”

He chews lightly on the inside of his bottom lip as Wooyoung looks at his beer can, thinking, and it’s here that San suddenly feels awkward with him for the first time in a while. There was something in between them that felt pressing, like he needed to do something or else they would suffocate with time. He feels his heart slow, nearly numb as he watches Wooyoung catch his eyes again, and the night slows once he begins to think too much about why Wooyoung was acting more nervous than him.

He blinks.

“Are you al-”

And the night stops once Wooyoung opens his mouth.

“I want to kiss you.”

San feels of bullets when he hears him, and he doesn’t know if it’s the leftover kick drum from indoors that’s making his chest rattle or his heart pushing against his bones, but he thinks, _really_ tries to think before he says anything. Wooyoung’s looking at his mouth again, then back up, then back down, and there’s this urge in the back of his head that feels like fire alarms once he realizes what he said, once he realizes this was the _want_ that’s been plaguing him ever since he stepped into Wooyoung’s house this evening to come here _._

He stands up, his knees weak as he tries to keep calm.

“What’s stopping you?” Is all he asked.

San’s apprehensive when Wooyoung leans down to him, but he knew he’d regret it for the next couple of lifetimes if he didn’t do it _now._

He pushes off of his toes lightly to meet him halfway, letting his eyes fall shut, and when Wooyoung kisses him tonight, he feels of supernova, too many thoughts and feelings coming to him way too quickly and they were stronger than what he’d expected, nearly collapsing in on himself once Wooyoung presses his hands to his waist and ignited infernos under his skin. While the heart of the party beat with his own, like burning candle wax San melts against him, solving one of his many, many puzzles pertaining to Wooyoung and putting together all of the pieces he’s given him. 

Wooyoung’s paused the world today, and as he kissed him again, San smoldered, as if he was made of red sulfur and Wooyoung’s fingertips were matchsticks, dragging across his skin and making him feel alive. San nearly drops his water cup, half-empty, bringing one hand up to Wooyoung’s face, feeling almost too far away as the blue lights dissipate into the warming sunset at the cliff that they’d been all too familiar with, the speakers indoors playing the soft piano piece that he’d loved so much, ignoring the press of his glasses into his nose as he’s taken away to all the things that he’s come to love, more so with Wooyoung. He feels as if the sky had been falling, crushing clouds and dissolving stars as Wooyoung tilts his head and kisses him again, and there was a faint hint of deprivation in the way he was gripping onto San’s shirt and pushed into his lips that made him feel even weaker.

He was going to burst if they kept this up.

And once San feels his lungs aching, he pulls back, letting himself breathe in reality and not the fairytale Wooyoung had painted for him again. San looks at Wooyoung with wide eyes as the realization sets in, the fact that they were at a party in public being the very most important. He groans, hiding his face in Wooyoung shirt and he feels the sudden urge to dig a hole in the ground and bury himself in it.

“Fuck you, we’re at a party.”

Wooyoung laughs, before he pulls back a little from San, still holding him and finding amusement in how easy it was to mess with him over something like this. He can barely hear, his heart beating too fast in his ears, but he can’t help the wooziness in his head as he smiles and lets San hide away from everyone in the collar of his jacket.

“Was that okay?”

San doesn’t answer for a moment, too caught up in the whirlwinds he’s made up in his head, too distracted with how Wooyoung looked in the night’s shade, too busy with the linger of his chapstick on the tip of his tongue, the heat in his skin and the skips in his chest. But San feels drawn to him again, and he didn’t know exactly what it was that makes it so easy. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I—”

“Yo, _whoa!”_

San pushes away from Wooyoung and almost falls into the fire pit he’d been sitting on, spilling a bit of his water into the grass and his fingers are numb with embarrassment as they both fall silent. He’s wide-eyed, staring at Yeosang and Mingi, both worn out looking and tired. San is _praying_ that they wouldn’t bother them about it.

That’s what friends do, he guessed. Made you want to die.

“I was gonna come over and ask if you wanted to leave but... _clearly!_ You’re busy.” Yeosang has a stupid grin on his face as he points at Wooyoung, slumped against Mingi, and San can’t feel his body anymore, seeing just how good Yeosang was at embarrassing his friends.

“Fuck’s sake, Yeo.” Wooyoung’s eyebrows come together as he looks at his beer once before pouring the rest out in the hedge beside them, hoping nobody complains about the waste, his appetite suddenly gone. “You ruin everything.”

Mingi huffs as Yeosang tries to balance his weight on one foot, his head somewhere floating with Orion and Cygni as he shuts his eyes, leaning into Mingi more. “Luckily for you, Yeosang is drunk. He won’t remember this tomorrow.”

“And you’re not?” Wooyoung asks, watching as Yeosang throws an arm around Mingi’s shoulders and smiles widely at Wooyoung, just because, and if he wasn’t slightly mortified at the moment, he would have told him how cute he was.

“I drove here. I can’t. I think Jongho is, but according to Yunho, the punch isn’t that strong and Jackson wanted everyone to leave before one. It’s almost midnight.” Mingi brushes it off, holding onto Yeosang as he leans on him.

“Hey, I am _not_ drunk.”

“Are you going to let him go home like that?” Wooyoung asks, while San was trying to find his head in the grass beneath his feet as their voices go through one ear and out the other.

Mingi shakes his head, an incredulous look on his face. “His mom would murder him. And then his dad would dig up his grave and murder him again.”

“Sounds about right.”

“Hwa’s gonna tell his mom he’s sleeping over.” Mingi shrugs, huffing again. “He’ll be fine.”

“Okay. Okay, let’s go.”

And as they squeeze back into the crowd, Wooyoung’s hand in San’s as they try to find their friends in the dark heat, San can’t stop thinking about it. He doesn’t stop thinking about it when they’re outside and breathing in the night’s changes, he doesn’t stop thinking about it when they get back to Wooyoung’s house, and he doesn’t stop thinking about it on his walk home. However, with those same thoughts came San’s embarrassment from Yeosang and Mingi, and he found himself hiding underneath his blanket as the night bled into early morning, a peachy sunset on his cheeks as he replayed his movie into his pillow.

San doesn’t text Wooyoung until the next afternoon.


	14. the groupchat and how wooyoung tells his stories

**_GUYS_ **

**_WEEEEE KISSED!_ **

**gi:** _ is that y he nearly had a heart attack when me and yeo came over _

**_yeth_ **

**yuyu:** _ SANNIE (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ _

**yuyu:** _ WAIT U KISSED HIM _

**jong:** _ DIDNT WE SAY NO FIRST KISS TILL AFTER MARRIAGE _

**yeosnag:** _ OOO U KISSED SAN IM TELLING UR MOM _

**yeosnag:** _ wait wdym when me and yeo came over _

**yeosnag:** _ i dont remember! _

**gi:** _ bc u were drunk off ur ass  _

**gi:** _ u were like WHOA YOOOO _

**gi:** _ and then san nearly had a heart attack right in front of us _

**gi:** _ im bad with emergencies ok so that was kinda scary  _

**_it was very cute_ **

**_and funny_ **

**_i love him_ **

**hongjoongie:** _ wow congrats.  _

**gi:** _ hongjoong that jealousy STANK _

**hwa:** _ hey how come ur texting in horres and NOT horres 2.0 _

**_because sans in there and i dont want him to know i'm having a stroke over him kissing me!!!_ **

**_he’s supposed to be the nervous one and freak out all the time_ **

**_im supposed to be his cool and calm boyfriend_ **

**_but im fucking fLIPPING AND IT ONLY HAPPENED LAST NIGHT_ **

**_my hearts like_ **

**_BLAT!!!!!_ **

**hongjoongie:** _ MINGI SHUT THEFTUVKUPPPPP _

**hongjoongie:** _ i do be jealous doe _

**hongjoongie:** _ of san :((( what if. i wanted to kiss wooyoung :((( _

**hongjoongie:** _ wait boyfriend _

**gi:** _ BOYFRIEND _

**yuyu:** _ :0 BOYFRIEND?????? _

**jong:** _ shut up joong u can kiss wooyoung on monday at sCHOOL _

**jong:** _ meanwhile i am stuck at carter. with HYOJONG _

**yeosnag:** _ IDHDKSJDOE _

**hongjoongie:** _ U HAVE SAN RIGHT THERE, KISS HIM!!! UNGRATEFUL _

**gi:** _ joong gay _

**hwa:** _ wooyoung gay _

**jong:** _ woojoong gay _

**_STOP TALKING ABOUT KISSING SAN IN FRONT OF ME THATS WEIRD_ **

**gi:** _ i mean,,,, i guess _

**jong:** _ okay lets just ignore the fact that wooyoung said hes supposed to be a BOYFRIEND ok its ok _

**yeosnag:** _ no he WANTS to be his boyfriend _

**gi:** _ if he doesnt make some moves he’ll NEVER be his boyfriend _

**_oh god shut up pls_ **

**hwa:** _ wooyoung baby tell us about ur steamy kiss! _

**_IT WASNT—_ **

**_HCFFSJJSJDIEE_ **

**_DJNEOEJEGDOE_ **

**_FUKEPERHIFLSBDKR_ **

**_STOPONCG_ **

**yeosnag:** _ ive never seen woo so flustered before _

**yeosnag:** _ over text its even funnier _

**yuyu:** _ I WANNA HEAR ABOUT IT WHAT HAPPENED _

**jong:** _ we left u two alone for like two seconds _

**_try two hours stupidhead_ **

**_BUT ANYWAY_ **

**_i was just like vibin w my drink right_ **

**_and i was like dude san_ **

**_is so pretty_ **

**_at night_ **

**_and i was getting super nervous and i know he caught on bc i was just thinking a lot u know???_ **

**_i was SO nervous_ **

**_and san was there like •-•_ **

**_and we were talking about something but i forgot_ **

**_i literally couldn’t stop staring at him_ **

**_and he noticed!!! i was like fUCK_ **

**_sO embarrassing he ik he probably thought i was WEIRD_ **

**_but like bro wtf else im gon to do???? enjoy the party???? lmao_ **

**_he was like_ **

**_r u okay_ **

**_and i was like_ **

**_i think i wanna kiss u_ **

**_like right on the mouth_ **

**_idk i think it was the bud light getting to me_ **

**_and he was like do it_ **

**_like right on the mouth_ **

**_and then weeeee KISSED!_ **

**_and then i was like,,, r u ok_ **

**_and he almost answered but YEOSANG AND MINGI CAME AND INTERRUPTED US_ **

**_and i was oh shit oh fuck_ **

**_and then he started to freak out_ **

**_and it was kinda funny but i also wanted them to leave us alone_ **

**_but then they were like the gang wants to leave_ **

**_SO WE LEFT LIKE ASSHOLES BEFORE I GOT TO TALK TO SAN AGAIN_ **

**_and he was still really flustered so he left my house without kissing me again_ **

**_like??? i need attention that was so rude_ **

**jong:** _ literally why do u tell stories like that _

**yeosnag:** _ i read that whole thing in wooyoungs voice _

**hwa:** _ yeah i like when he texts like that _

**hwa:** _ it adds flavor  _

**hwa:** _ is little baby wooyoung upset that san didnt kiss him before he leftttt _

**_do u wanna fuckin die_ **

**yuyu:** _ omg wait were u two drunk!! _

**_definitely not_ **

**_i didn’t want to drink anymore_ **

**_san was also not drunk_ **

**_his cup was filled with water_ **

**yeosnag:** _ woo u had one beer  _

**_expensive beer!_ **

**gi:** _ bitch it’s bud light that’s the kind of beer that u could buy as a fifteen year old and the cashier would just act like its legal asking 4 id only in front of the boss _

**yuyu:** _ that is so oddly specific yet i understood it perfectly _

**hwa:** _ what yeosang meant to say was “good 4 u for staying sober while i got plastered and grinded on seonghwa in front of his teachers son!” _

**_YEOSANG U WHAT_ **

**hongjoongie:** _ WHEN TF WAS THIS _

**jong:** _ hawl awn ion remember alladat _

**yeosnag:** _ eye— _

**yeosnag:** _ hwa i cant believe u would do this to me _

**yeosnag:** _ THE GROUPCHAT?? _

**yeosnag:** _ top ten anime betrayals _

**jong:** _ yeosang weeb yeosang weeb _

**yuyu:** _ I REMEMBER THAT _

**yuyu:** _ ME AND MINGI WERE THERE AND MINGI WAS LAUGHING AT HIM _

**gi:** _ bruh yeosang wylin _

**_THE TEACHERS SON_ **

**_WHICH TEACHER_ **

**hwa:** _ MR WAAAAANG _

**hwa:** _ SO EMBARRASSING  _

**jong:** _ WASN’T THAT THE TEACHER THAT WROTE YOU THAT RECOMMENDATION LETTER _

**hwa:** _ YES IM HIS BEST STUDENT _

**jong:** _ OH NO NOT JACKSON _

**hongjoongie:** _ jacksons gonna snitch! _

**hwa:** _ BRUUUUHHHH _

**hwa:** _ jackson was lookin at me like ●_● _

**yeosnag:** _ I WAS DRUNK OKAY _

**yeosnag:** _ FORGET THAT HAPPENED _

**hwa:** _ TELL JACKSON THAT!! _

**yuyu:** _ IT WAS SO FUNNYYYY _

**yuyu:** _ seonghwa was like ah haa ha yeosang what are u doing haaa ha and pushing his butt away _

**gi:** _ meanwhile yeosang too busy throwing it back to respond _

**jong:** _ never thought yeosang would do that  _

**gi:** _ u did it at aishas— _

**gi:** _ actually,,,,, not my business _

**jong:** _ every time u speak about the party incident u make me wanna shave ur head but only leave a tuft in the middle so people can bully u at school _

**yuyu:** _ ODDLY SPECIFIC YET PERFECTLY UNDERSTOOD (◠﹏◠✿) _

**jong:** _ yunho dont ever change i love u _

**hongjoongie:** _ anyways what are we doing tomorrow _

**gi:** _ nothing im tired of yall _

**yuyu:** _ does that include me (｡-_-｡) _

**gi:** _ never ever ever includes u <333 _

**jong:** _ i think im gonna b sick _

**hongjoongie:** _ theyre in love jongho we wouldnt GET IT _

**hwa:** _ do u guys wanna go to the park next weekend _

**gi:** _ THE ONE WITH THE PRETTY FLOWERS _

**gi:** _ WE COULD MAKE EACH OTHER CROWNS!!! WED LOOK SO CUTE I WANNA CRY _

**_can i bring san_ **

**yeosnag:** _ drop san off and then leave _

**hwa:** _ YEOSNAGFJ _

**_okay fuck u me and san will just go on a date and u get NOTHING_ **

**yeosnag:** _ NOOOOO _

**jong:** _ hehe _

**yuyu:** _ wooyoung i love u AND san _

**yuyu:** _ two for the price of none! what a steal!!! (〃^∇^)ﾉ _

**_at least yunho loves me_ **

**_everyone else go home_ **

**hongjoongie:** _ shut UP dont let me get married to these losers by myself _

**hwa:** _ yeah im literally only agreeing to marry bc of YOU _

**jong:** _ yeah wooyoung makes me heart go like _

**jong:** _ BLAT!!! _

**gi:** _ sans heart too u know what i mean ;))) _

**_aw man_ **

**_i hope so!! otherwise thatd be sad_ **

**yuyu:** _ dude r u kidding have u seen the way he looks at u _

**yuyu:** _ like how mingi looks at sundew plants _

**gi:** _ sundew plants are AMAZING if i could have a garden of them i would! _

**jong:** _ any plant that eats meat is automatically on the shit list  _

**jong:** _ cannot rock with it will not rock with it unable to relate _

**yuyu:** _ he looks at u like ｡◕ ‿ ◕｡ and u KNOW IT _

**_he does NOT_ **

**yeosnag:** _ denial isnt ur best look woo :| _

**hongjoongie:** _ i still dont know if we’re going to the park this weekend _

**yuyu:** _ yeah we gotta! so i could look at the butterflies <33 _

**jong:** _ :0 omg do u guys wanna work out while were there _

**jong:** _ on the little trails! _

**hongjoongie:** _ i will LITERALLY pass _

**yuyu:** _ ah suddenly my ankle is broken and i could only walk very slowly _

**gi:** _ u know damn well aint nobody tryna hear that shit jongho _

**_bold of u to assume we would say yes to exercise_ **

**jong:** _ well fuck me sideways then _

**jong:** _ fine but i get to pick the place we eat afterwards _

**hongjoongie:** _ as long as it's not that terrible sushi place then yes _

**hwa:** _ fair trade honey! _


	15. strawberry cake and how fast san was falling in love

The sky looked endless today, goldenrods and cerulean washing over the world as the clouds escaped to a part of Earth that really needed it. On days like this, San had always felt endless in himself, like he belonged in the sky, burning with the sun, and he could be anywhere at any time when he dreamed.

Today, he found himself at the park, tethered to the ground by Wooyoung’s hand in his, by watching his friends mess with each other as they sat on a blanket and ate from the straw basket Seonghwa had brought while the sea rushed against itself below them. He was tethered, by the sun humming against the colors of the sky and by the cars behind them passing by in a low whir, like chimeras. It took months for them to finally get together and meet up at the park, only because on the days Jongho _wasn’t_ weighed down with homework, Yeosang had to work extra shifts or Yunho would have newfound presidential duties for his animal rights club. 

They didn’t want to come here without anyone, and San understood why and thought they were the sweetest group of people he’s ever had the fortune of meeting.

Wooyoung would come over nearly every day to fill the gap in his chest to just see someone for the day, and the more he became a part of San’s life, the more San had begun to feel like himself. San was beginning to get comfortable in his cracked glass skin, comfortable with the flowers growing inside his walls, comfortable with Wooyoung breaking down his fortresses and how it felt to just _feel_ around him.

He was comfortable with how it felt to love someone.

Of course, he’d never tell him something like that. But he liked Wooyoung way more than he expected to and he was starting to get uneasy about it. He reminded him of the Red Sea, his smile of sandy shores and the susceptibility to get lost in his vastness, and San was scared of plunging into his water, into salty waves and unknown depths, too scared of drowning under his currents. He was perfectly fine floating by the sand, and he didn’t want to change the position of the sun, how the waves rippled over him in a welcoming and controlled way.

Maybe, he just was afraid of change.

Another tethering laugh from Mingi takes him out of his headspace for a moment, and it’s only when Wooyoung shifts beside him that he realizes how small he was, compared to everything around him. He was tiny beside his friends and their huge personalities, their loud voices, their suffocating generosity towards each other. He’d always looked forward to doing new things and trying to find reasons and solutions for a lot of his worries. The reason behind Wooyoung, the reason behind his friends, maybe the reason behind his mom.

But sitting here, as Hongjoong stabbed a straw into another juice box, or as Yeosang and Seonghwa kissed each other between their conversations, he thinks that there probably wasn’t really any reasoning after all. Do things happen for a reason, or do reasons stem from the very things that they’re questioned from?

San would never get it.

“Hey, San, these skewers are really good!” 

Jongho brings him off of his perigee, his voice reminding San of candlelight in the way it warmed him, particularly fitting with the way things were set up today.

“Thank you. My...my mom used to make them for me.”

San falls sheepish as soon as it leaves his mouth, the mention of his mother bringing a dull pain to his chest as the lingering memory of them eating dinner settles in between his bones, feeling slightly sick at the fact that he wouldn’t have them again, never like she would make them.

He takes a breath as he watches the patterns of their checkered picnic blanket, trying not to think too much as the white fabric takes on the soft shade of the sky.

“San, if you don’t mind me asking…” Hongjoong sits up a little, his blue button-down billowing slightly as wind picks up and drags across them, the right side of his collar folding into his chest. San blinks, because he knows when people usually say that, their follow up question usually was supposed to make you very uncomfortable. 

“What happened to your mom?”

_Come on, Hongjoong._

As the entire group falls silent, San choosing not to think they were stringing sympathies through him, San’s head empties for a moment, and it was then when he felt a damaging spotlight on him as he’s been lost in the pitch black of his empty head. It almost stings, how suddenly it came across to him, and San wants to grimace as it skids over his sensitive skin and plunges through his chest, to maybe tell Hongjoong that it was making his nose tingle and his throat feel heavy and he didn’t want to talk about anything else for the rest of the day.

But he blinks, and finds his thoughts in his lavender sweater sleeve, brighter as it took on the gentle light of the afternoon.

“She…” His heart falls slowly, but not in the alluring descent that he’s grown fond of when he’s around Wooyoung, or doing something dangerous late at night with Hongjoong. It was as if it was trying not to hurt itself when it hits the ground. “In an accident. Uhm…” San quickly wipes his nose once he feels it begin to run at the thought, then rubs over his eye, feeling his eyelashes clump and his stomach feels so, terribly sick as he thinks, remembers the rain and the dents and the sounds she was making and how he couldn’t save her from it.

He also remembers where he was right now. At the park, in front of his friends. He can’t cry in front of his friends. It’d make them feel bad.

He doesn’t know why he can’t talk about it. It’s been almost thirteen years. And he knew he would never get over it but _god,_ it was so fucking hard even mentioning her. There wasn’t really anything he could say to express to them how much he missed her, how much he missed them just being in each other’s company, how much he cried over her when he woke up in the morning or sat in class at school or walked home by himself if Wooyoung missed that day. 

He couldn’t even begin.

“I was six.” Is all he says, and with the way his voice sounded like shattered china towards the end of his sentence, Hongjoong drops it.

“Ah. I’m sorry, Sannie. I shouldn’t have asked.”

San shakes his head once, wiping his nose again, making another small wet spot on his sleeve and he focuses on how gross it looked rather than talking. He’s heard that all too often, _I shouldn’t have asked,_ and sometimes he feels bad about the fact that they regretted asking such a simple question that should have an even simpler answer. _My mom’s fine,_ is what he wished he could say, maybe _she’s great, we just had breakfast together this morning, how’s yours?_

But he _couldn’t_ and it felt like termites eating away at wet wood in the way it dissolved him, slowly yet piercing with every word and memory and thought and it was _there_ and he knew it wouldn’t ever go away.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” San looks up at him again, tilting his head with a counterfeit smile to try and ease Hongjoong’s concerned expression for him. “I need to be able to talk about it. It’s just hard, you know?”

Hongjoong nods, and he bites the inside of his bottom lip tentatively while trying to find what to say in the picture of the apples on his juice box, feeling kind of ashamed for even asking about it, even though San told him it was okay. He perks up again, and San, with Hongjoong looking up at him almost like a child trying to make up for the vase he broke, looks forward to what he has to say as another doldrum skimmed his cheek and wet lashes, making him rub his eyes again.

“If there’s anything we could do for you, you’ll let us know, right?”

San nods. “Just be my friends. That means the world in itself.” 

“Aw, San!” Yeosang smiles and crawls over to him from Seonghwa as quickly as he could, kind of sliding in his jeans against the fabric of the picnic blanket, and San forgets for a moment why his chest felt empty all of a sudden.

It was hard, when your heart’s right in front of you.

And as Yeosang is hugging him and squishing his cheek to his hair, while San is blushing in Wooyoung’s and Mingi’s and Jongho’s arms, while Yunho was pressing butterfly kisses to the top of his head, while he’s giggling as Seonghwa and Hongjoong found a way to squeeze themselves between everyone else, San feels like a bonfire, his friends with the gasoline on their hands.

They didn’t even try, yet he felt so good around them, as a group or individually, and it almost makes him want to cry when he thinks about how he was a few months ago. He was alone, hated talking to people, was always crying and letting the world absorb his tears and his resentment for everyone as he abused his heart and cut himself off from everything. 

Things were so quick to change, he knew that, but _god,_ if he ever pictured it like this.

And he wanted to tell them sometimes, that he really loved them and that they were changing his life just by the way they thought of him when they were out buying things at the bookstore or included him in everything they did, but he was afraid they would think he was too tenacious or something. He’s seen way too many movies and made up _way_ too many scenarios in his head between then and now to really go through with it.

He just loved them a lot, is all.

“San, you better not leave us for cooler friends, okay?” Yeosang tells him, and San holds onto his sweater a little more as he pulls back from him, giving him some breathing room, but the air was beginning to get too cold and he kind of wanted him back.

San shakes his head and smiles at him. “Never.”

“Hey, that reminds me,” Mingi speaks up, pulling back and leaning a little on Yunho as he has his legs tucked underneath him, smoothing down the part of San’s black hair where they’d all messed it up. “There’s a small flower field little ways down, by the trail. Me and Yunho go there sometimes when we come down here. You wanna go see it?”

“Oh, by the playground?” Wooyoung asks, and Mingi nods, a slight gleam in his eye that told San there was a lot more to do there than look at the little flower field he was thinking of.

A playground. He hasn’t been to one since he was little.

“Then, are we done here?” Seonghwa stands up from the group around San, and before anyone can really answer him, he’s already kneeling down to pick up discarded juice boxes from behind them and empty containers of fruit.

“Yeah. Thank you again for the skewers.” Hongjoong rests his hand on the top of San’s head for a moment for emphasis, before getting up to help Seonghwa.

Mingi and Yunho get up together, and as Wooyoung stood, he held his hand out for San to take again, losing it during that huge huddle around San. As if on autopilot, San finds himself blushing immediately at the gesture, and he takes Wooyoung’s hand and lets him pull him up off the blanket. His legs feel like toothpicks once he puts all of his weight on his feet, a slight numbness to one of them.

He shakes it, holding onto the bottom of Wooyoung’s t-shirt for support.

“We should help them clean,” San tells him, but it’s only when he looks up that he realizes it was a little too late when Seonghwa sweeps the crumbs off of the blanket and takes the end of it in his hands.

Wooyoung throws an arm over San’s shoulders and presses a soft kiss to his temple, San taking the opportunity to hide his face in his shoulder once he’s running on heat, rubies flooding his cheeks.

Wooyoung had always been so sweet, even more, when he could kiss him whenever he wanted to or come over just to sleep in his bed and keep him company for the day. Simple things like that, makes San want to open his heart more than he allowed himself to, to give Wooyoung a lot more than what he was doing.

But when it all came down to it, he didn’t really know what he could do. He was still really new to this stuff. 

“Nah, they’ve got it, honey.”

Honey? _Honey?_

San doesn’t know how much he could take.

“Stay here. I'll put this in the car.” Seonghwa holds the near-empty picnic basket in his hands, his blonde hair messy and in his face because of the wind, picking up the edge of the blanket neatly folded on the top of the basket.

“Thanks, dad!” Jongho chimes up, and Seonghwa makes a face that looks like he was in pain as he watches his feet crunch the grass beneath them, stepping over the tree roots curving out from the ground.

“Don’t call me dad. Ever.” 

Jongho smiles like Christmas lights when they’re lining rooftops, and as soon as Seonghwa came back, interrupting Hongjoong and Yeosang’s very important conversations of which subject was better (San would have told them math, but he knew how much they all hated anything related to numbers, so he kept quiet about it), they left to see the flower field.

It was in the way they did things as simple as walking to the playground that made San fall in love with Wooyoung the more he looked at him. And he’s been looking at him _a lot_ recently. He looked at his smile, at his eyes of diamond when he looked at the sky at a certain time, how his words tasted like the saccharine drip of popsicles in the summer swelter whenever he spoke only to San. It was different when he did. Wooyoung was beginning to become everything to San with little to no effort, and it was kind of unfair how San had to keep trying to shut him out so long.

Maybe he would stop. The efforts were more than futile at this rate.

“You’re thinking.” He tells him, while the sky is warming and the first bits of vermilion begin to soak through the clouds set high above them.

Night was coming. He’d look forward to it.

“Yeah.” San smiles softly at him, and as Wooyoung is trying to figure out what San was thinking in his cosmos, as their friends went off into the playground and left them for a moment in each other’s orbit, San reaches forward to smooth down Wooyoung’s hair, brushing it away from his face and only using that excuse to cover up for him just wanting to touch him.

Wooyoung warms, his chest feeling like a sunrise on a Saturday morning when San does that. He felt many things with him, whenever he did anything, really. It was kind of hard not to when San was making it so easy to make him stop everything and make time for him, even when he didn’t ask for it.

“What about?” Wooyoung asks, but the question doesn’t really register past his lips as he stares at San, and how he reflected everything the world had put out today, how beautiful the flowers were, how nicely the sun was setting today.

San seemed to always be setting, his golds and magentas and soft blues becoming something that Wooyoung would wait up for and watch whenever he could. He shakes his head once, and looks away from Wooyoung when his heart begins to ache.

He was so _afraid_ of him.

Wooyoung leans over and brushes his ear with his nose lightly, a way he used that told him he was trying to be nosey without asking questions. San smiles and looks at the grass they were standing on, pulling away from him with a bleed the color of carnations on his cheeks, his ears warm. 

“What else would I be thinking about?” San asks, and Wooyoung purses his lips as he thinks, looking into the sky and finding his answers in the first transparent peek of the moon above them.

“What you’re gonna do when you get home,” Wooyoung tells him, and San shakes his head, finding the naivete in the question endearing.

“Or…” San’s lips are spiced with the reluctance to talk about it, but he should know better than to think Wooyoung would think he was weird. “You.”

“Me?”

San bites the inside of his bottom lip, and there was a shade of nervousness on his back once Wooyoung lightly bumps the back of his hand with his own, San taking the initiative to lace their fingers together this time. Wooyoung smiles, and once the sky lights him up with golden tokens from treasure chests at the bottom of the sea, displaying his pretty eyes and the beauty marks pressed into his skin and all of his perfect flaws that San could admire forever, he looks away from him.

“They’re good things, I hope?”

“Of course.” San glances again at Wooyoung, feeling the soft weight of his eyes and he could tell the look was more than just really _looking,_ but he couldn’t tell exactly what else.

Wooyoung smiles, and his heart is made of butterflies and he has an urge to kiss him again but he was kind of scared to do it because he didn’t want San to think he was too clingy. 

Being a boyfriend was hard.

San sees him glance at his lips and look at the grass underneath their feet, a pang of familiarity in his heart when he does. He’s thinking, and it’s just when he takes in everything around him, how the wind blows and how Wooyoung’s hand feels in his and just how much he craved him, even right now when he was right next to him, that he hears Mingi call for him.

“San, look!”

He glances up to see him pointing to a bunch of small flowers in a patch within the field. They were white with a light purple interior, bleeding into the middle where yellow stalks sprouted out, the perfect spot for bees. Mingi runs over to the nearest patch, leaving Yunho where he stood and falling to his knees, starting to pick out all of the flowers, a beautiful smile on his face as he focuses on nothing else except turning these flowers into a crown for San. 

“He’s gonna put those in your hair,” Wooyoung tells him, stopping in his tracks and taking the time to swing their hands back and forth, releasing something in his heart that reminded him of lying out in the street at three in the morning.

It occurred to him then that he’s done it before.

Wooyoung, Yunho, and San watch as Mingi continues to pick them out, pulling their stems from the ground and tying them together, and by how fast he’s doing it, San relishes in the fact that he must do them a lot for Yunho, imagines Mingi getting excited over how a certain color flower would look in Hongjoong’s hair. 

Blush spills into his cheeks once Mingi looks up at him excitedly, holding up his flower crown in the making. 

“This is for you!” He calls, and San smiles at him and feels his heart soar into the stars above them.

He waves at him. “Thank you, Mingi!”

Jongho and Yeosang are laughing by the slide as Seonghwa sits above the monkey bars, hooking his legs on one and his feet under another. San watches in a mixture of fear and confusion as Seonghwa hangs himself upside down, his jacket slipping off of his shoulders as he smiles, shadowed by the sinking sun behind him. Just looking at them made San want to run, maybe yell to the bottom of the cliff or sink into the beach a few ways away from their spot. 

“Swings?” Wooyoung was up for doing something just like that, but opted for a safer option, leading San to the swingset once he nodded.

“I’ll push you,” San tells him, spotting a few grains of sand on one of the seats of the very old looking swing, held up by two chains that danced with the small breezes passing by the vicinity. 

Seeing the playground in itself brought back memories of his mom. He wasn’t sad about it. He always loved to go to the playground with her. 

“Swing with me! There’re two.” Wooyoung says, letting go of San’s hand and following him over to the swingset, the entire playground empty since nobody really knew about it being here. Nobody ever really strayed past the trees in front of the offing, mostly flooding to the beach below them on a sunny day.

That reminded him, he needed to go to that beach with Wooyoung one day, while they were still with each other in the city. San sits on the swing, making marks with the toe of his shoe in the sand below them, waiting for Wooyoung to do the same, and he has a tiny grin on his face as he begins to kick his legs to get a little higher. 

“Wait, San!” Mingi calls for him again, his voice reminding San of cotton when it’s pulled apart, gentle and soft against his ears. “Here, try it on!” 

San stops moving and tries to stabilize himself as best as he could in the sand below his feet, Wooyoung already taking the initiative to swing higher. Mingi places the flower crown on San’s head, and it’s the expression Mingi has for him that makes him believe that meeting him, facing his fears of talking to new people and opening his heart to them, was more than worth it. It’s when Jongho and Hongjoong are chasing each other around the outside of the sandbox, when Mingi meets Yunho back at the flower patch and they continue to make crowns for each other, when Yeosang pushes himself down the slide or when Seonghwa pulls himself up and sees how far he can get on the monkey bars without falling. It’s when he’s high up in the air and looks below him into the sea, as he moves into the sky and it seems like he’s on fire at the edge of the world, that he feels excited again, as if the sun had finally cut through his forests and warmed his cold skin. 

Like a child again, being loved and adventurous without really any worries except for coloring outside of the lines, for the first time in a while.

No, that was a lie. He feels like this only with Wooyoung. Only with his friends.

 _His friends._ He loved saying that, thinking that, picturing them. His friends, the ones he could call his own. Time goes by so fast sometimes, he thinks it’s weird to remember that he’s only known these people for three months rather than three years. It’s safe for him to say that they meant more to him than they realized. 

And as the night swallows the rest of the sky, replaces her pretty marigolds and magentas with the royal sapphires of incoming twilight, and San is following his friends to their cars, he catches Wooyoung at the very back of the group. He lightly pulls on his wrist to stop him for a moment, catching his mouth and kissing him softly, syrupy and addicting, and Wooyoung follows his lips as he pulls away and as he tries to get his head back to what was happening, San can’t help but laugh at him. 

“I know you. Just gotta ask for them.” He smiles brightly, and Wooyoung watches him bound away to Hongjoong and Jongho as they go back to the parking lot, his sleeves pooling over his hands as he tugs on Jongho’s shirt, the younger throwing an arm around him and pointing towards the street at something that piqued his interest enough to fill San’s diminishing spaces with it. 

As he looks at San underneath the moon’s pearly bloom, at him and their friends, he can’t help but smile.

Confidence. It looked so, so beautiful on him.

~☾~

San somehow convinced Wooyoung to watch Corpse Bride with him for the fourth time since they’ve known each other. Letting him into his house has been just as easy as everything else, as easy as thinking about him and as easy as being with him. Thoughts like this make him nervous. 

And even worse when Wooyoung sees him smiling at nothing and asks about it.

 _Nothing,_ he tells him, and Wooyoung doesn’t drop it until San takes his hand and leads him from the living room into his kitchen, shadowed by dim lights while the night sky shrouds the house in impenetrable darkness outside. Wooyoung sees it underneath the glass case San put over it when he opens the fridge and takes it out, setting it right in the middle of the island, and it looked almost cliche in the way that it was just there, waiting for them, almost like a gift.

Wooyoung really liked gifts, especially from San.

“You made a cake?” He asks, and San nods, letting Wooyoung go see it.

It was just a cake, he knew, but San _also_ knew Wooyoung had a tough time not showing how happy he was over things like this, and it was the small stuff that San loved to get him with, just to see the extra high in his voice or the extra glint when he looked at something.

Just pushing a little more for him, is all.

“Yes. For you.”

Wooyoung stops midway in his tracks to get a fork, not really caring about cutting it or finishing the cake themselves. There were lots of things on his mind, now. 

“I’m going to marry you.” He looks up at him once, then goes back to digging in his silverware drawer.

“Shut up.” San looks at the floor and he flushes into the tile, almost grumbling because his heart felt tied to balloons when he said that, floating away from him and it was literally just the two of them in his kitchen, in their safe haven when they needed a break from the world. 

San meets Wooyoung in the middle of the island, and Wooyoung hands him the second fork he’d gotten for him, his mouth filled with cake already and there was pink frosting in the corner of his mouth.

“Jeez, Woo. You could have cut it.” San leaves him for a moment, only to pull a paper towel from the dispenser near the sink, coming back over to his side of the island and reaching up to his mouth.

Wooyoung swallows, turning to him and letting San wipe his mouth for him, as if it was a regular thing those two did, as if it was okay to take care of each other like that. San feels his hands slow as Wooyoung looks at him, looks _into_ him, his chest sinking and his legs feel like television static when you turn to the wrong channel, and Wooyoung watches him as he blushes under his gaze and balls the paper towel up once the frosting is gone.

They seemed to get stuck a lot, just by looks. Wooyoung loved it, San minded it more than he should.

“Thank you.”

San smiles at him, before he reaches over and takes his fork from the other side of the island, peeking over the wall a bit to watch parts of the movie still playing from the living room. It was getting to the piano piece and San really wanted to listen to it, but he also wanted to talk to Wooyoung all night and there was a conflict in his psyche that made him kind of hate the first option because he knew Wooyoyng would leave later.

There was always time for Corpse Bride.

“You know, I think this cake is really good,” Wooyoung tells him, and he dips his fork back into it, revealing more of the pink filling and there were fresh strawberries in it that made San’s mouth ache when he ate them.

“Thank you. I was hoping you’d say that.” His voice sounds like dragonfly wings when he says it, his confidence in the cake still faulty, but he appreciated that Wooyoung liked it, considering it was for him and all.

“Did you think I’d tell you differently?” Wooyoung asks, forking more into his mouth, smiling around it.

“Maybe. Unpredictable, remember?”

“I’ve been realizing what you meant by that lately,” Wooyoung says, swallowing and using his fork to kind of play with the crumbs that were on the base of the cake holder.

San blinks, trying to think of what to say as he stares into the pink frosting on the cake. He realizes that Wooyoung was a person who thought of a lot of the things he did, who felt a lot of the things he did, and not some dream he was still sleeping in. He found it less strange that he was beginning to have certain effects on him, now, maybe even the same, but it still made him nervous just thinking about it. 

“I’m unpredictable to you?” 

“A lot more now, yeah.” 

“Is it because we’re dating?”

Dating. That word tasted like the strawberries when he says it out loud.

“That’s a question for you, Moon,” Wooyoung tells him, and it’s when he sees San blink once and could practically feel the heat radiating from his face that he smiles again, and he takes another bite of the cake San made but his appetite is suddenly gone and he’s disappointed because he really wanted to eat it.

San stopped eating a while ago, too wrapped up in his head once he thought about what he said. Wooyoung had taken him on more trips than anyone or anything else lately, whether they be trips to the cliff or the diner or the pier or within himself. He doesn’t think it’s really possible for him to do more than that for him, but he was, and even now, as they’re eating cake in the middle of his kitchen while his favorite movie plays in the background, San is somewhere, foreign and completely out of his comfort zone, and it was all because of Jung Wooyoung and his tethering laugh or his fettering crescent eyes when the night fell.

“San? Are you okay?” Wooyoung asks, completely oblivious to the way San’s walls were crumbling down, oblivious to the way San was changing so fast, yet too slowly, just in the way he looks at him.

“Can you…”

Wooyoung puts down his fork, and it’s in the tone of his voice and the way he sounded so unsure about something as he trails off that makes him listen. And it makes San want to float into the stars and past the universe’s boundaries when Wooyoung _looks at him like that._

“Can I...what?”

“Kiss me.” Is all he says.

And as Wooyoung leans down and kisses him against the island counter tonight, slow and unrelenting and ardent, San shuts his eyes and indulges, feels the stars warming his skin, butterflies circling him as he stands in the blooming daisy fields of April. Like the sun rising for the first time in years, he was warm and cradled in cinders when Wooyoung slid his hands to his waist, feeling sunspots melt into his skin and alpenglow slip into his blood, and it’s then when San realizes just how much he _felt_ with Wooyoung. 

San had waded too far past his shores. He was done floating and felt himself swimming, nearly drowning in him, but he couldn’t stop letting himself go past his undercurrents and he found himself getting swept away by him, in the way he held him like he was porcelain, in the way he kissed him like he was rare candy, in the way he smiled like allotropes in the glare of the sun, in the way he loved him like he deserved everything the world could ever give him.

Wooyoung made him feel so valuable, every single time.

San had decided he doesn’t mind the rush, doesn’t mind letting Wooyoung’s currents take him. He doesn’t mind letting Wooyoung in, doesn’t mind him holding onto his heart and keeping it safe for the time being.

He was falling in love. 

And while the piano piece plays in the background, he wonders, after all this time, if this is what it feels like for the sun to finally come out after a storm.


	16. the groupchat and how wooyoung really feels about san

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO YOU GUYS!!
> 
> very excited to say that ive finished the au! this is the last gc convo before the end so i hope u like it uwu and i hope the ending doesnt disappoint u! im planning to update everything today
> 
> ik ur probably tired of hearing me say this buttttt THANK YOU!! thank u for reading this, it's already at 61+k words??? and it's not even done yet?? so if you're still here, thank you for keeping up with this au and im really grateful to the comments and messages about it!! i've been very unsure in how my writing has changed, but hearing that you like it is very very motivating. i'm sure you're sick of me saying it but!! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR EVERYTHING <3333 ik it's not that deep but u know
> 
> enjoy!

**_you GUYS he made me FUCKING CAAAAAKE_ **

**_A CAKE_ **

**_CAKE_ **

**_IMSO_ **

**_IN LVOE WITH SAN_ **

**_OHMRIS_ **

**gi:** _a cake bitch_

 **yuyu:** _san is lit rally so whipped 4 wooyoung_

 **hongjoongie:** _no ones ever made me a cake b4 :(_

 **jong:** _bc ur single joong we would actually get it_

 **hongjoongie:** _hey jongho u wanna b my boyfriend_

 **jong:** _SHUT UP U ONLY WANT ME FOR CAKE!!!_

 **yeosnag:** _remember when hongjoong said he wasnt gay_

 **hwa:** _nope_

 **hwa:** _cant recall_

 **gi:** _BITCH STOP TEXTING IN HORRES AND GO TO HORRES 2.0_

**_NO SANS IN THAT ONE_ **

**_I DONT WANT HIM TO SEE ME FREAK OUT OVER HIM MAKING ME A CAKE_ **

**_hes gonna think im weird_ **

**_like i literally stay up past him going to sleep sometimes just to admire him_ **

**_like_ **

**_hes so pretty_ **

**_how did i get so lucky_ **

**_is that weird????_ **

**yuyu:** _no i do that too sometimes ★~(◡‿◡✿)_

 **hwa:** _awe wooooo_

 **jong:** _how cUTE_

 **gi:** _wait yunho what_

 **yuyu:** _wait yunho what_

 **yuyu:** _anyway lets talk about san!_

 **gi:** _hold on im crying_

 **gi:** _yunho i love u_

 **yuyu:** _:0 i love u too!! my pretty rose（⌒_⌒）_

 **hongjoongie:** _EW_

 **jong:** _theyre in love hongjoong we wouldn’t GET IT!!!_

**_i think_ **

**_i am in love w him_ **

**_i think_ **

**yuyu:** _wait seriously_

 **yeosnag:** _wbk_

 **hwa:** _yeo i think hes being serious_

 **jong:** _wait are u being serious_

 **hongjoongie:** _how can u tell!_

 **gi:** _hawl awn r u being serious or not_

**_idk he just makes me feel like_ **

**_dude idk_ **

**_i feel sick even thinking about him_ **

**_my tummy_ **

**_and my heart_ **

**_but i wanna see him literally 25 hours in a day_ **

**_i wake up and im like_ **

**_i wanna go see san_ **

**_and i look at him and im like_ **

**_i wanna kiss him_ **

**_or hug him_ **

**_or talk to him about like bullshit_ **

**_idk_ **

**_i love like_ **

**_him_ **

**_ya know_ **

**_but weve only been going out for like three months_ **

**_and even our dates are like_ **

**_so fun_ **

**_we go to the cliff and stuff or our houses or new places that seem cool to go to_ **

**_my parents like him too!!_ **

**_and now that weve been places together i wanna go there all the time_ **

**_like_ **

**_he gives me butterflies and like_ **

**_IDK_ **

**_AHAHSHSJJD_ **

**_JRHGKDFHJKSD_ **

**_RGFHSIUFHUISFBKSJFDHK_ **

**gi:** _bitch if u dont tell him_

 **yuyu:** _that was so_

 **yuyu:** _crying brb o(╥﹏╥)o_

 **hwa:** _AWE WOOOOO_

 **yeosnag:** _is it appropriate if my heart kinda hurts rn_

 **yeosnag:** _woo u literally love that boy_

 **yeosnag:** _pls tell him soon_

 **hwa:** _our little ones growing up :’(_

 **hongjoongie:** _ive never been in love but bitch it seems like u r!_

 **jong:** _COULD U IMAGINE SANS FACE IF WOOYOUNG EVER TELLS HIM_

 **jong:** _hes gonna b like :0_

 **jong:** _he would probably explode_

 **jong:** _san is a man of very few words_

**_i wanna SEE HIM_ **

**_BUT I JUST SAW HIM YESTERDAY!!!_ **

**gi:** _clingy bitch_

 **yuyu:** _hes in LOVE mingi we would actually get it_

 **yeosnag:** _hehe_

 **hwa:** _well i hope u figure it out well enough to tell him one day_

 **hwa:** _right now might b a little too early to tell, u know?_

 **yeosnag:** _yeah but u ever hear those stories of love at first sight!_

 **yeosnag:** _it could happen at any time_

 **jong:** _love is so complicated it's times like these when im glad im single_

 **hongjoongie:** _yeah same fuck love_

 **hwa:** _ur not in love w us??? after we were supposed to get married??? omg_

 **yeosnag:** _now i'm actually heartbroken take that back :(_

 **hongjoongie:** _ok i take it back but fuck love_

 **yuyu:** _omg_

 **jong:** _where did wooyoung go :((_

 **yeosnag:** _probably texting san_

 **yeosnag:** _like a lOSER_

 **hwa:** _that was u approximately two years ago_

 **yeosnag:** _SHUT UPPPPP_


	17. friday afternoons and how similar they felt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter contains a little more cursing than what the written portions are used to so please beware
> 
> it's kinda weirdly written but the next ones are better i pROMISE
> 
> enjoy!

It was too cold out.

It was approaching 95 degrees and the sun was perched at its highest as Wooyoung worries at 3pm on a Friday afternoon. But it was cold, and he was chilly as an icy sweat of worry settled in his head the more time he spent left by himself in the courtyard of San and Jongho’s school today.

He’d been waiting. 

It was when the sun began to cool down in the afternoon sky, in the way where it was becoming unsettling when he’d been waiting out here for so long, that he began to get worried. He’d texted him, but he never got a response and he couldn’t help but just _worry_ , not sure if he should even be concerned or not but it was there and he was _worried._

The more people he saw leaving the school gates in front of him, the more anxious he’d gotten. So he waited, sat on the curb with his knees up to his chest, trying to shake the cold and watching cars zoom past him on the emptying street and imagined San maybe at a new club’s meet or talking to his counselor about last-minute senior stuff before college applications rolled around.

Yeah. Yeah, San was fine. Just being a responsible student.

It didn’t stop him from texting him again once the sky fell and was simmering in the thulian shades that usually made him happier for the time being, urging him to go before his parents began to worry, yet he got no response.

It was 6pm and he was on the way home, glancing back at the school and not seeing the one he was looking for as he walked farther from it, the courtyard now desolate save for the few kids waiting on their parents after a club meet or late sports practice. And Wooyoung really hoped to see San among one of those few kids, but he didn’t and it reminded him of the time when he lost his mother in the grocery store once.

He was cold, then, too.

He texted him again, and then called him, and as he’s listening to San’s voicemail, he thinks that maybe he’s being a little too overbearing. It took a little, but he began to walk home anyway, watching his footsteps and stepping over the separations in the sidewalk, hoping that maybe San took a different route. Maybe his counselor took too long and he was stuck in the office, maybe his dad came to pick him up today and they were out at dinner and he couldn’t talk to him yet.

It was 6:17pm when his response came in the form of San running into him, eyes puffy and red and Wooyoung immediately began to panic once San hid his face in his jumper, feeling his body nearly sink into his chest as he stares at San under the red sulfur of the evening, haunted by the fact that he wasn’t there for him when he needed it. San cries in silence into the hard part of his palm, where he would roll his wrists sometimes, yanking at his hair and seeing silver phosphenes speckling his vision like stars.

These stars were so, so ugly.

“San? _San?”_

Wooyoung pulls away from him, and his heart falls once he sees San looking up at him, his eye bruised again and his nose was running with the many colors blood comes in, messing around his mouth.

Blood. _San was bleeding._

Wooyoung swallows down the dryness in his throat, feeling the world around him start to collapse once it sets in that he wasn’t there for him, wasn’t there to help him and he’d left him alone at the school. He breaks when he sees San hide his face behind his hands again, falling into his chest to hide everything from him as he lets Wooyoung’s jumper soak up his humiliation and aches and troubles, tries to find his muddled paradise in him, even if it was only for a second. Wooyoung didn’t really care about the mess if he was making any at all, his head going straight to a place where they would be safe from the world as he looks up at the empty sidewalk behind them, as if whoever did this to San was made of the clouds that stared down at them, made of the sun beaming over them or the pavement beneath their feet and they needed to get out of its sight _now_ , before he was hurt again.

“Let’s get out of here. I’m taking you home.” Wooyoung pulls back, holding San’s hand as he leads him to his house, nervous with the ruse that more than one person beat him today by the way he looked, getting angry and upset but it was running in circles because he didn’t know at exactly _who,_ yet. 

San was hurting and Wooyoung knew it too well.

He felt his blood begin to warm at the thought, feels it boiling once he gets to San’s house and shut the door behind him, feels it melting his skin once he digs through his medicine cabinet for anything to help clean him up and feels it blazing once he comes back to the kitchen to see San with his head down, leaning over and hiding his face in his arms as he stands at the counter. 

Just last weekend, they were here, eating strawberry cake and watching Corpse Bride and falling in love with each other. 

Today, they were stained in blood, and Wooyoung thinks that there were very few things worse than this.

“I’ll clean you up, Moon.” 

San doesn’t say anything, instead, he looks up from his hands slowly, too embarrassed to really look Wooyoung in the face with all of these bruises on his own. His nose had stopped stinging, simmering to a dull ache whenever he accidentally brushed over it, taking him back to the bathroom that one Friday afternoon and remembering Jongho getting upset, just like Wooyoung was slowly revving up to do now. 

He didn’t know why he couldn’t be as angry with him as Jongho and Wooyoung had. 

“I’m sorry,” San tells him, once Wooyoung roughly pulls a paper towel off of the dispenser by the kitchen, turning on the faucet quickly to wet it. He could practically feel the heat radiating off of him in the few feet he stood away from him.

“Don’t.” Wooyoung turns his head to look at him, and it causes a thunder to roll in his chest as his eyes spark lightning and forest fires. “Don’t apologize for something like this.” 

And Wooyoung looks at him like he’s about to say something else, but he shuts his mouth and his eyebrows quirk together before he goes back into the faucet and shuts it off, wringing out the paper towel. He was so upset, but in reality, he knew he couldn’t really do anything about it now. Who was he even looking for? What would he tell the principal? _The police?_

They would dismiss him as quickly as he walked in.

Maybe that’s why he’s feeling so agitated, because he knew nobody would do anything for San.

Wooyoung shakes his head to get rid of the thoughts, not doing much for him except for making the situation even worse.

“Where was Jongho?” And Wooyoung knew he was pointing fingers, and he _knew_ it wasn’t Jongho’s fault but he couldn’t help but shift blame onto him for as long as the thought was in his head. “Why did they fucking do that? Why are they picking on you for no reason? What the hell was the point—”

“I have no _fucking_ friends _,_ Woo!” San’s voice is somewhere in the middle, between broken and loud, and Wooyoung feels like he’s run into a brick wall. San never raised his voice like that, not ever, and it stung Wooyoung to see him reach a point where he had to. 

He stops his rushing train of thought, listening to him. A tear paints its way down San’s face, cleaning up the blood by his nose and flooding over his chin as San silenced the world in those few seconds. His chest is rising and falling heavily, in a way that tells Wooyoung that he was angry, but he didn’t know at who. 

Wooyoung feels cold again.

“Nobody wants to hang out with me, I walk in the fucking hallways by myself! I’m always the last to get picked for groups or completely ignored if I do. People make fun of me because of my hair or how I’m scared to talk to people in my class and I’m constantly worried about who’s watching me when I need to fix my clothes or scratch my face and I’m terrified of them thinking I’m _a freak_ and I’m scared that I’ll drop my books in the hallway and get laughed at!” San doesn’t really think about what he’s saying, but he can’t stop, he can’t, _he can’t,_ “I hate relying on Jongho to be okay at school and I’m scared you’re gonna really see me as weird, too, and get bored or freaked out just like everyone and _leave me_ , and I-”

Wooyoung cuts him off, hugs San so tightly, it feels like he was going to squish out his brain. But there was something about the vise of a comforting hug from him that stops his tumbling fire, stops his spiral into his own head, and prompts him to cry into his shoulder again. He didn’t know why, he barely even knew what _about,_ but he was crying almost too hard and he was shaking and Wooyoung’s heart was falling again and San knew he was probably being dramatic and _god,_ this was probably the worst time to have Wooyoung here.

He can’t stop crying, and he doesn’t know if it’s from the pain in his face as his cheek is pressed against the rough fabric of Wooyoung’s backpack strap, or the way Wooyoung was so willing to give again, even when San was yelling and mournful at him about being bullied at school. Wooyoung hated to listen to him break down against his chest, and he wonders just how pitiless the world could be to cut San out like that.

He takes a breath.

“San...I never left you for a reason.” Wooyoung’s voice feels stale, and his mouth is like cotton as he releases a shaky breath into the air, the wet paper towel still in his hand as San takes him in, relaxes under the vibrations of his voice when he speaks, his eyes stinging as he tries to calm down. “It’s not because you’re weird or sound strange. It’s because I like you a lot and wanted you to be my friend, too. I want my friends to know you like how I do because I think they deserve to know someone like you. I don’t think you’re weird, and neither do our friends. You have such a great personality and you’re so good at just _being_ that it’s kinda hard not to. You won’t ever have to worry about how you look or act in front of me, or in front of them. We love you for you, you know?” 

And as San soaks in his voice, like thin glass over a fire, just _waiting_ to crack apart, he feels Wooyoung press his lips to the top of his head.

That was enough. 

He doesn’t know why it’s taking him so much effort to believe him, when he’s proved so many times that he wouldn’t lie and wouldn’t judge and wouldn’t do anything that San had expected him to, in some cases, wanted him to, just to see if he would. He never did, but this was _enough_. He latches onto his words like a parachute as he free falls into the cloudy beliefs and hopeful skies that Wooyoung had conjured for him. 

San’s eyebrows come together as he stares into the wall of the kitchen, the paint and decorations on his wall becoming blurry as he wells with tears again, his nose stuffy. “Woo-”.

“It doesn’t matter that you’re quiet. It doesn’t matter that you don’t talk in class. It doesn’t matter that you read a lot of books or you like to be alone more often than being with someone. It doesn’t matter. We would still invite you out. Yeosang would still cook for you at the diner and Seonghwa would still call you at night to check on you. Yunho would still read a book to you if you couldn’t sleep and Mingi would still bring you the most beautiful flowers he could find to put in your hair. Jongho would still eat lunch with you and ask about your day and Hongjoong would still try to get you to do something crazy with him at three in the morning. I would still love you. Fuck those guys who pick on you, and fuck anyone who thinks you’re weird. Fuck them. They don’t deserve you.”

He doesn’t understand how, every single time he goes to school, he’s drowning. He thinks too much, about everyone and everything, and he’s underwater, his head covered by the freezing waves and currents pulling at his feet.

He was always drowning.

Yet, Wooyoung, with his candied personality and beaming radiance in the way he smiles, was always there to pull him out. He was always there for San to hold on to when he couldn’t breathe, always there to help him float when he felt too overwhelmed. 

If anything, he didn’t deserve Wooyoung himself, and he thinks that’s what makes him cry again.

“I’m sorry for yelling. I didn’t mean to make you upset. I’m sorry for making you cry.” He tells him, and San shakes his head, trying to think and materialize Wooyoung as he still has him close, his body feeling numb and Wooyoung not helping his case at all.

“It’s not...you...Not your fault.” San says, squeezing out his words through the lump in his throat that felt like acid against his skin as he held onto Wooyoung’s jumper, fingertips aching and his hands felt a little cold.

“It’s okay to rely on us to be okay. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you. I know Jongho would be upset if he was there today. As long as we’re here, no one can hurt you, Moon.”

And San believes him. For one time out of many that Wooyoung has said something to him that sounded so outlandish, just like this, he believes him. He always relied on himself for everything. 

Maybe it was okay for them to help him be alright.

“You guys...do so much for me. I’m sorry.” San says, and Wooyoung pulls back a little only to kiss his forehead this time, San dejected that someone could care so much for him like that, even when he didn’t ask, didn’t want. 

What did he do to earn him?

“Can you stay? Please?” 

Wooyoung immediately nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll stay with you.”

It took a while to get San’s face clean, but Wooyoung managed to calm him before changing out of his messy shirt and into one of San’s oversized band tees. San loved the way his clothes looked on Wooyoung; it almost made him want to go out and buy only oversized shirts just for him to wear. 

He then thought he liked Wooyoung a little too much.

Wooyoung put a movie on while San insisted to cook for them, just for background noise because they were good at distracting each other when it came to things like this. It was the same old movie, but he thought it held sentimental value and would help San feel better, especially when it got to that certain piano part. 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to help you?” Wooyoung asked once, leaning against the opening of the kitchen and watching San pour sesame oil into the saucepan he was holding onto while the gas stove was lit, so it wouldn’t fall off of the stove or something totally unlikely that San would always worry about.

He nods. “I’m sure.”

Wooyoung smiles, watching how much attention San was putting into something like cooking, how pretty he looked under the dim lights of his kitchen, how perfect he thought he was doing something so mundane. He would never get it. “I’m _so_ gonna marry you.”

“Oh, my god.” San shakes his head, smiling. “Shut up.”

“What’s your ring size?”

San’s heart flutters wildly at that, his skin burning as a sandy roseate pressed into his cheeks and lit the top of his ears in rubies. He shakes his head, and picks up the little bowl full of minced garlic next to the vegetables Wooyoung picked out, emptying it into a pan and it makes a noise like the rain that falls over San’s roof sometimes. “Not telling.”

“Six?”

“Nope.”

“Eight.”

San smiles wider, mostly at the fact that their conversations were becoming more silly with every passing day, or late at night when the twilight would bounce off of their whispers under San’s blankets (and not at the fact that Wooyoung guessed right, anyway).

San moved the saucepan a little as the garlic perfumed the kitchen, and quite honestly, he hated the smell. “Go away.”

“Fine. I’ll go save you a spot on the couch. Maybe.”

San smiles again, one of those that threaten to surpass the boundaries of his face and hurt his cheeks if he did it for too long, when he feels a dull ache in his nose and it takes him back to a few hours ago, when the sky was hot and set fires in Wooyoung in the middle of his kitchen. 

Oh. That reminded him.

“Hey, Woo?”

Wooyoung stops himself from turning around, looking at him with his eyebrows raised slightly to tell San he was ready to listen. And San almost wants to look away because he loved to hate how Wooyoung was always so _ready to listen_ to him.

“Thank you. For today. And for every day.” San says, feeling sheepish at the memories of coming home today, but he thinks it’s worth it once Wooyoung smiles at him and tilts his head slightly, spotlighting him in all of his affections and fondness and it makes San’s stomach flip as he smiles again, looking back at the saucepan.

“You know I love you, Moon. I’ll be here for you, always.” Wooyoung says, and San knew there wasn’t much weight to his words, _especially_ that first part, but it makes his heart dance like butterfly wings for the second time in ten minutes and he has to look down at the saucepan again. 

Wooyoung goes into the living room to leave San with his thoughts, and once they eat on the couch and settle under San’s blankets as night comes, lets the stars bounce off of their silence and ease them to rest, Wooyoung listens to San’s soft breaths as they stayed in his bed. He had spent a lot of nights thinking rather than sleeping lately, and this had been one of those innumerable times. San was always on his mind. He lets his hand softly brush over his black hair, takes in how he looks and how peaceful he was despite his eye decorated with a violet watercolor and his skin stained coral beneath his nose. 

He takes in how peaceful San could make him, just by sleeping beside him under the protection of his blankets.

“How lucky am I to have you, Moon?” He asks softly, and his heart is heavy as he kisses San’s forehead, brushing over his hair again, and he knew he couldn’t hear him but he felt he needed to ask anyway.

And he hoped, to solve one of his many questions, to reveal one of the many secrets in his universe, that maybe San would have an answer for him soon.


	18. flowers and how much they meant to san

It was the morning after June 15th.

On many of their impromptu birthday parties for each other, they had decided to crash at Mingi’s after having Yeosang’s birthday party there. School had been out for a little while now, and with the freedom of college applications and senior events and everything that shouldn’t have caused San a fraction of the stress it did, he took the time to vacation, like he was supposed to.

The sunlight was choppy as it streamed through Mingi’s living room window blinds and slashed across his forehead, warming his skin and waking his body up for the most part. And in that weird stage between himself waking up and threatening to go back to sleep again, he took in the layers of sheets he’d been lying on, the pillow under his head and the blankets pooled at his feet.

He was still a little too lazy to open his eyes, though. The air smells like food.

He hears light shuffling beside him, and it’s then when he feels more warmth and a light weight on his shoulder that tells him he’s next to someone. There’s silence, San swimming in his head’s lazy river as he watches the darkness, yet he feels his heart kickstart once Wooyoung stops moving, resting his cheek on San’s shoulder and facing him.

He feels the slight rise and fall of his chest against his arm and San feels himself wake up immediately, his face getting hot the more Wooyoung just lies there, looking at him.

“Stop staring at me.” San nearly whines, his voice heavy with exhaustion as he smiles, eyes still closed.

Wooyoung couldn’t help it, not really. He thinks San is beautiful, during every storm that falls over him, during every sunrise and twilight that kindles him in between. He thinks he’s prettiest in the morning, just waking up, when the sun showers him in a mellow halo, when he’s messy and original, when he’s got no makeup on and his hair is tousled with last night’s wake.

Wooyoung thinks many things about San, but this morning, the first thing he thought of was how  _ beautiful _ he really was and he couldn’t help but stare at him.

“Sorry.” Is all he says. He didn’t mean it.

And he keeps his cheek on San’s shoulder, taking in his side profile, how pretty his black hair looked against the white pillows he was lying on, how pink his lips were or how dark his eyebrows were. Wooyoung didn’t really know what he was thinking.

Maybe he should stop staring at San.

“San? Wooyoung? Are you guys awake?” Yeosang comes into the living room, where there were empty beds made of all of Mingi’s fluffiest blankets and pillows, where San and Wooyoung were accompanying Jongho as he slept sprawled out in Yunho’s space a few feet away, his shirt riding up over his tummy and his hair a mess.

“Yeah,” Wooyoung tells him, craning his neck to look at Jongho. “Jongho’s dead, I think.”

Yeosang sighs, walking over to him, his pajama bottoms a little too long for him as they covered over his feet and dragged against the tile, bending down to Jongho’s level on the floor. 

“Hey, Jongho. I made breakfast. And hot chocolate.” Yeosang squishes Jongho’s cheek between his forefinger and thumb, knowing just how much he hated it.

It worked for the most part - Jongho’s eyebrows come together and he  _ looks  _ like he’s going to get up, but it’s when he slowly turns away from Yeosang to lie on his stomach and face away from his voice that Yeosang sighs again. San stares at the ceiling, listening to Yeosang talk and how Wooyoung’s clothes ruffle as he gets up, smoothing out his shirt.

San feels the urge to stretch, and when he does, lifts his arms above his head and pushes, his bones feel like jelly and there’s a slight pang of regret in his head that tells him maybe he shouldn’t have done that. It did, however, make him want to stay in the sheets and maybe fall asleep again until tomorrow. 

There was something about the soft white lullaby of the morning lighting up the room in a daisy petal sheen that made him more exhausted than when he slept.

“Sannie, let’s go eat before it gets cold!” Wooyoung says, his voice hushed for Jongho, even though Yeosang was able to get him to stand and lead him into the kitchen, passing by them with a soft  _ morning,  _ but it was chalky and transparent and San watches Jongho rub his eyes and disappear into the hallway.

“Too lazy.” Is all he says.

“Come on, Moon.” Wooyoung holds his hand out for San to take, and he knew it would take more for him to deny it, so he leans up (with almost too much effort) and lets Wooyoung pull him, slumping into his arms when he feels his entire body give out under his weight.

“Sleepy boy.” Wooyoung giggles into San’s hair, and San almost wants to stand up straight and walk to the kitchen on his own, maybe run there, just so he wouldn’t let Wooyoung add this to the list of pet names he liked to call him when he least expected it.

San and Wooyoung get there in time, and he’s suddenly giddy at his friends’ voices in the kitchen as they sit around Mingi’s counter, Hongjoong and Seonghwa standing up at the end of it while Jongho fell asleep again on the sofa in the second living room. He’s greeted with a bunch of voices that sounded very excited to see them, and San gives a shy wave at them as Wooyoung smiles and spots Jongho on the couch.

“Is Jongho sick?” He asks, and he scratches the back of his hand while San leaves him to get food from where they laid it out by the stove.

“No. Just lazy,” Yeosang tells him, and Jongho groans as he turns his body away from them, tucking his hands underneath his chin so they wouldn’t get cold and trying to hold on to the last bits of sleep before he  _ really  _ has to get up again.

And it took a while, but Yunho somehow convinced everyone to get dressed later to go hang out at the pier all night (through a mouthful of toast), while they still had the weekend to spare. As everyone left the table, Mingi and Seonghwa racing up his stairs to get to the sink first, San thinks of the clothes he’d brought with him and how they weren’t really for going out, but at the same time, he thinks they’d be okay if nobody really studied him. 

Yeah, he’d be fine. They were okay.

“Hello? Earth to San?” Yeosang’s in front of him, his eyes a little puffy from sleep and his brown hair was messy as his hands were wet from the running faucet, going to the stove and picking up more dishes to wash.

“Hello.” San looks up at him, and he remembers the diner and he smiles a little wider, feeling Mingi’s counter underneath his palms as he presses his hands to it, thinking.

“Are you done with everything?” He asks, and San blinks, before he looks at his empty plate, save for the strawberry stems he’d left on it.

“Oh, yeah.” He nods. “Yeah.”

“What are you thinking so hard about?” Yeosang asks, a jest to his soft voice as he tosses the stems in the garbage and places the plate in the sink. 

San thinks that maybe Yeosang was happy working at the diner, after all, even though he thought he wasn’t. With the way he seemed to enjoy it, San could almost see the napkin dispensers with the finger smudges on it beside him, or the shiny, silver sink Yeosang cleaned his customers’ dishes in. 

He decided to stop making so many assumptions about people.

“What I’m gonna wear for today.”

“You brought extra clothes, right?”

San nods, even though Yeosang couldn’t see it, his eyes trained on the dishes and his hair falls in his face as he lets the water run over the top of a plate. San imagines all the soggy food underneath the suds by the drain, and he grimaces and looks back at his hands, trying not to think.

He needs to stop thinking about it,  _ god _ .

“Yeah.” Is what he tells him.

“I’m sure you’ll look cute. You always do.”

“I guess so. Thank you for always being so nice to me.” San says, and he means it in the way he was always supporting him and his crumbling confidence whenever he felt out of place and different, and even now, washing up after them, even when Mingi told him he would get it.

“Thank you for being my friend.” Yeosang shrugs, and San smiles and looks down at his lap, shy again.

He’s never been thanked for being someone’s friend before.

He’s never really  _ been _ anyone’s friend until recently.

“Can I help you?” San asks, his eyes going to the small, reflective splotches of syrup on the counter under the kitchen lights, then to the dry dishes needing to be taken out of the rack.

Yeosang shakes his head. “Uh-uh.”

“Let me wash the plates, then?”

“Go away or I’ll get Yunho.”

San squints, pursing his lips and humming. “I’m not scared.” 

_ “And Mingi.” _

San almost wants to protest because he knew the two would do nothing harmful save for encouraging his terrible attention span, probably get him to go look at Mingi’s garden or climb the tree with them in the front yard, but he pouts anyway while Yeosang shakes his head silently, his eyebrow raised in the challenge for him to offer help again as he moves from the sink to put the dry dishes away.

San felt a little better.

“Thank you, Yeo. I appreciate you.” 

“Yeah, I love you, too.” Yeosang smiles brightly at San before beginning to pick up his plate. “See you later. Now, go away, would you?”

San grins as he remembers the diner from back in September, where this same exact situation happened between Yeosang and Wooyoung and he wished that he could have someone to offer his help to, too. And his smile widens in knowing that he  _ did,  _ after they’ve cooked him breakfast and hot chocolate in the morning. And he knows this is probably not how Wooyoung felt, considering they had a closer friendship, but it still felt really good.

_ He _ felt really good.

And he’s about to go invest his time into scoping out Wooyoung from the empty living room, probably upstairs with everyone else and trashing Mingi’s bedroom (at least, he assumes that’s probably what the screeching was about), before the boy in the second question comes bounding down the stairs in his light green sweater, his cherry red hair burning in the sunlight coming through the big windows he’s got.

“Hey, San! Just who I was looking for. Come on, let me show you something.” Mingi says, and holds his hand out for San to take. 

He doesn’t find it as weird anymore, if anything, it’s normal for your friends to hold your hand, like it was normal for them to make you breakfast and it was normal for them to hug you when you were upset and bring you gifts at school if they thought of you at the store and call you at night to make sure you were okay and just  _ love  _ you. 

It was normal for San to be loved.

It  _ was  _ weird that Mingi was going to show him something, though. Was it another gift? 

San decides, as he takes Mingi’s hand, that he would go to the store tomorrow and get him a gift. And Wooyoung. And Jongho and Hongjoong and Seonghwa and Yunho and Yeosang.

Mingi opens the sliding glass door from one of the hallways that branched from the living room with his free hand, San finding his house so nice and vacant, yet filled with how it was decorated and lived in. He wanted to explore everything, discover the hidden closets and attics and the door to the basement but he knew he probably couldn’t.

He would never ask, either.

He lets Mingi tug on his hand as he walks quickly into his backyard, excited about something, and it was huge and perfect for outdoor parties or a pool. It almost reminded him of Jackson’s, and when San remembers the night of the party, he couldn’t help but blush again.

The sun was beginning to beat down on them now that it was nearing noon, but San wasn’t feeling the heat yet or felt uncomfortable, and if anything, it was a nice contrast to how cold it was inside today.

He turns the corner of the house with him, and Mingi takes him up to a plot full of bushes speckled with red flowers and purple bunches of little ones on the opposite end of the square that he thinks would look pretty poked into someone’s hair. Mingi leads him down the clearer path, and he marvels at all the roses and the patch of petunias and the gypsophila lining the little brick walkway that reminded Mingi of Wooyoung’s smile (he looked it up as soon as he got home that night, now he knows exactly what they looked like and he thinks Mingi has great taste in flowers to smiles). 

San doesn’t know how Mingi had the commitment to plant this whole thing. He wondered how long it took for him to finish, if he even was.

“Where are we going, Mingi?” San asks, his voice light and he giggles a little when Mingi tugs him again, like a child.

They stop, finally, at another plot by the mango tree settled in the corner of the garden, where the neighbor’s brown wooden fence begins, shaded slightly by the leaves and it was so huge and San finds it wonderful how Mingi cared for everyone and everything, something as fragile as flowers he loved to take care of and he thinks he’s wonderful in all of his soft smiles and gentle looks for someone as tall and intimidating as Mingi could be if you didn’t know him.

He smiles when he imagines Mingi and how much he cared for Yunho. 

He follows Mingi’s gaze to the patch in front of them, where the brick walkway splits in two and outlines the patch they were standing at. San is silent.

“We planted this for you. Maybe like...three months ago? So they started blooming in time. I was so excited to show you, I couldn’t wait. It was pretty convenient for you and Yeosang to be in the kitchen while we were arguing over whether to show you or not, yet. But it’s been a while, so it was okay.”

San looked at it, his heart beating slowly, taking in the patch of different flowers, standing out from the rest with their bright colors and how misplaced they looked, yet it was perfect in an abstract painting kind of way. Mingi lets go of San’s hand, and watches him go over to the flowers, sinking down to his knees and admiring how full of life they were. 

They weren’t dead.

He was silent, adoring how the sunflower really did face the sun, how transparent the petals of the tulips were and how beautiful white roses looked against the wash of hues the garden held. 

Flowers. These flowers were nowhere  _ near _ wilted.

Mingi doesn’t say anything, yet. San watches them sway in the soft winds of June as his head feels full. There was something about these flowers, and maybe it was the motive of why they were planted, or how beautiful they looked and how different they were compared to the last flowers San has really  _ looked  _ at, that makes his nose feel like pins and needles and his eyebrows come together.

His skewed reality of something like  _ flowers  _ had changed so quickly. And he knew he shouldn’t cry, because it really shouldn’t have meant so much to him to just see the kinds of flowers that looked so familiar when he was six look this different when they were in Mingi’s garden, right in front of him. 

He tries not to cry. He shouldn’t.

“We all had the idea to plant a flower that reminded us of you. It’s a little cheesy, but Wooyoung insisted when I threw the idea out to them.” Mingi’s voice was soft, domestic in a way that felt like they were the only two people in the world. “Yunho picked the white rose, because he says white roses represent new beginnings. He said that he was happy to have a new friend and that he can’t wait for the adventures we would go on from now on. He loves meeting new people, I’m sure you’ve noticed.” 

And it was here that San began to cry. 

He’s not sad, and this is such a nice moment, he can’t believe he’s allowing himself to cry. But he does, and he’s kind of embarrassed and he can’t see the flowers anymore and everything was blurry, but he can’t stop thinking about his friends, and how they planted flowers for him. And in that bout of resentment, of something that can be as beautiful as these flowers, there was a heavy dissonance in his chest and he was starting to think that maybe, there was nothing wrong with them.

Maybe, these flowers wouldn’t hurt him so much.

“Are you okay?”

San nods, blinking softly and feeling the wetness on his cheeks and his chin, familiar yet alien in the way that he wanted to jump across a million moons and he felt his chest fill. He nods again. “Keep going.”

Mingi is quiet for a moment, and San feels his eyes on him, and it’s only when he feels another tear slide down his face that he wipes them and blinks again so that he could see his flowers. He felt bad for worrying Mingi, but he remembered that nobody really knew about it. 

He promised himself he would tell them, soon.

“That tiny sunflower in the corner is from Yeosang. It means adoration, he said, and would not stop talking about you when he first met you. I don’t know if you remember.” San nods, smiling and remembering Wooyoung telling him exactly that.

_ Yeosang will not shut up about you. Please come to the diner with me soon _ . 

“That white camellia is from Seonghwa. It also means love. The laceleaf, the red flower next to his, is from Hongjoong. He said he thought you were one of the nicest people he’s ever met, and it’s hard to find genuinely sweet kids these days. Which is true. High school kids suck.”

San smiles. He knew it all too well.

“I don’t know how, but Jongho managed to get freesia seeds and planted them, right next to the rose. He said you liked to think, and he’s always wondering what you think about when he sees you spaced out at school, or when we hang out, or when you’re alone.” San smiles again, shaking his head once at Jongho’s juvenile thinking and imagining him wondering if he had been thinking of aliens or why the color purple is also called violet.

If only he really knew what went through San’s head more often than not.

He wipes his tears again, feeling it pool in his chest and he wants to hug them, maybe give them each a piece of the world to show them how much they meant to him. Mingi keeps going, and San feels the heat of the sun over him as he cries, and he’s starting to get a little warm but he really wanted to stay out here and be with these flowers all day, just to think and read all of their stories.

“That purple statice in the front was from me. I think about you a lot, and how you’re doing and if you’re okay. I hope that’s not weird, but…” San could practically see Mingi shrug with a diffidence that seemed almost misplaced, and he shakes his head. 

“Not at all. I do, too, with you guys.” San tells him, nodding once and watching his flowers wave at him as another breeze sweeps through his clothes, and he wants to tell Mingi so much more, that he appreciated it and this changed his entire perspective on the very thing that he hated, but he doesn’t. 

“Thank you for worrying.” 

Mingi smiles, gently placing his hand on San’s hot hair, and while they’re silent in that moment, San knows exactly what Mingi wanted to say and he nods again.

“That last one, that tulip beside the freesia, means perfection. It’s from Wooyoung.” San’s heart falls, and while he’s a little surprised, it was just what he had expected from him.

Exactly what he had expected. 

“He wouldn’t tell us everything, but he said he thinks you’re perfect, even when you don’t. He said that you have a lot of flaws that you worry about, like we all do, you know? But he thinks you’re perfect and that you shouldn’t worry, so planting this flower for you might help you see that.” 

San stares at it, sees the tulip and how pretty it looked within the rest of the flowers, and he can’t help but cover his face with his hands, that being enough to break him, and San ducks his head to cry into his palms as it felt like Wooyoung was right there, telling him everything that he was thinking through a smile that reminded him of sinking into warm baths on a cold day, telling him not to worry and offering to go buy a million hot chocolates for him at three in the morning again. 

_ God,  _ he was something else, making San cry like this on a Saturday. 

San wipes his eyes and gets up, his legs feeling like wood, but he stands up straight and buries his face in Mingi’s chest quickly, hugging him so tight that it felt like he was going to break him. This should have felt off, felt like it was something that San would never do in his life. 

But it was normal. It was more than usual for San to hug Mingi, to trust him and let himself show someone else how much he loved him. And as San is trying to stop sniffling to hear Mingi’s heart against his ear, he feels Mingi hold onto him and breathe out a smile.

“I don’t deserve you guys.” And his voice was broken and he probably looked so dumb, crying over flowers in the middle of Mingi’s backyard, but what else was he meant to do?

Mingi giggles, ruffling San’s hair and pressing his cheek to the top of San’s head, reminding him that he was a person with thoughts and feelings that sometimes take up too much of him, but it was all worth it in the end because sometimes your friends will plant flowers for you, or tell you how much they love you when you seemed like you needed it. 

“You’re perfect for us, San. We love you, okay? Don’t ditch us for other friends or else we’ll be upset with you.” 

There it is. 

“Thank you, Mingi. I think it’s lovely.” San pulls back, wiping his eyes in his shirt again and looking over the flowers, admiring them and just thinking. He didn’t really know what to think about, either, but he was. 

Mingi puts an arm around San’s shoulders, a wave of relief over him that San didn’t think it was weird for them to plant him flowers (much to Seonghwa’s concern and Yunho’s fear). “Hey, see that spot in the middle? How it’s kind of bare?”

San stares into it and nods. 

“That’s for you. Pick a flower one day and plant it. There’s no rush. Find yourself in that flower and just plant it. Even if it’s at four in the morning, I’ll let you in.”

San smiles, and takes a breath as he tries to calm himself down. He wants to go to the flower shop  _ now,  _ to go research all day and find a flower for them. But he knew he needed to wait. He really didn’t want to, but he would.

The flowers were on his mind when the sun fell and cast shadows over the world, the alarm for nightfall going off within the stars. The flowers were on his mind when he went to the pier and rode the Ferris wheel with a terrified-of-heights Wooyoung, the flowers were on his mind when he left, and they were on his mind when he slept and when he woke up in his bed the next morning. 

There were no more vines in his walls.


	19. storms and how san was always missing her

The sky was grey today.

It wasn’t raining, but it was more in that awkward space between trying to decide to storm or clear up a little later. Wooyoung hasn’t heard from San since yesterday, and despite texting him and asking if he was okay when he woke up this morning and getting one-word responses, Wooyoung couldn’t help but feel strange about it.

Today was weird for him. There was a dissonance in his chest about leaving San alone today, or if he should go visit him, just to check up on him.

He knew San well enough to know the answer to his own questions, but there were still pins of doubts piercing through his head. His heart was heavy. It was about to rain, and Wooyoung knew how San got when it stormed sometimes. He was in the middle of brushing his teeth when he decided to just go, and if San yelled at him to leave, told him that he wanted to be alone for today and get lost, he would take it. It was better for him to know than to just ignore him.

He understood most of San. 

And as he makes his way over to San’s, as the rain picks up and taps it's watered fingers over his black umbrella, as he runs out of the shower and tried his best to ignore the soft thunders creeping up over their city today, as he takes off his shoes and jacket at the door and realizes how quiet the inside was, is when he understood why he felt so strange today.

“You’re crying.”

Wooyoung blinks, feeling the world around him melt into blacks as he looks into San, how tears stained his face and settled on his chin. It was just them today, San’s room encased in the dark shadows that went almost too well with the atmosphere in here, and it was then that it felt like they were against everything when San looked so small. Wooyoung expected this, expected him to be missing her when it rained, but he never expected to see him look  _ this  _ damaged.

Wooyoung immediately starts going through the list of things he’s learned to do to help someone feel better. To forget even, at least for the moment. He didn’t really know what to do for him, but he tried and he always thought it worked whenever San would eventually smile at him with his glassy eyes and puffy lips and flushed cheeks.

“I...want to be alone.” His voice is wavering, as if the ocean had flowed through him and left everything he put out as vast and empty as its depths had been for anyone to see. 

Wooyoung feels his heart drop, and he doesn’t know if it’s because San was hurting and he couldn’t help him, or if he couldn’t be with him when he wanted to. 

He would give him his space. He just didn’t know if he should.

“Are you sure?”

San stares at the floor, his eyebrows coming together and his eyes vacant, and Wooyoung almost holds his breath once he shakes his head, so swift in the way that if Wooyoung had blinked, he would have missed it. San took heed to what Wooyoung told him earlier. It’s okay to rely on him when he needs to be okay.

It was okay.

Wooyoung stares at San, at his outline in what little light is filtering through the sky behind them, in the inky sheen that his dark room had held. He had been crying for a while, his hand gripping the doorknob for support as his eyes were trained on the tile under Wooyoung’s socks. He doesn’t say anything, he only slips in through the space San had left between himself and the door, shutting it behind him. Time seemed slowed; there was something about a dark room sogged by a terrible dream or upsetting memories that made everything seem to halt.

San wipes over his eyes, and Wooyoung sees his hands lingering over his face and could tell he began to cry again. He was tired, having woken up barely two hours ago and had already worn himself out just by thinking today. Wooyoung sits on his bed with him, trying not to sink at San’s soft cries into his hands, feeling his hand softly shake as he holds it in his and a wave of memories floods over him again. 

“Talk to me, Moon.” Wooyoung looks at San’s black hair, runs his free hand through it and smooths it down, telling him that the mess was from San hiding under his blankets all day.

San rubs his eyes again. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey.” Wooyoung’s voice is soft, but it’s the tone that made San want to apologize again for apologizing.

Wooyoung lets San lean into him, pressing his lips to his hair and listening to him breathe, waiting for him. He didn’t really know exactly what he was waiting for, but San knew Wooyoung would make all the time in the world for him and he thinks that it wasn’t helping his case to feel better. 

And it should. But he just felt he didn’t deserve it. 

“I miss her.” Is all he says.

And Wooyoung tells him that he knew, and with the way he’s shielding San from himself tonight, he goes back to the cliff, on that very first day they met and how everything changed so fast. He remembers, as the moonlight was cooling over them, how persistent Wooyoung was. He remembers, when he tried to push him away, when the rain washed over the two of them and ruined his shoes, when he dragged him to Yeosang’s diner for hot chocolates or laid in the street with him at three in the morning, just how willing Wooyoung was.

Even now, when he wasn’t even speaking, he was so persistent in letting San  _ feel,  _ that he thinks Wooyoung was too good in forcing him out of his comfort zone like that. He would never want to talk about her to anyone. 

But with Wooyoung, he spoke nearly too much.

“I think about the night we met a lot, and how everything was, and how if you weren’t there with me…” Wooyoung’s quiet, lets San spill his heart to him because he knew just how difficult something like this was for him to do, especially about her. “I was so  _ fucking _ sad, Woo…” San feels his heart drop, shattering against the hardwood floors of his pain, feels his eyes begin to well again and he’s really close to breaking because of his stupid goddam mom and  _ god,  _ he just wanted her back. 

He wanted her back.

“I was really just in my head and it gets really hard to be here by myself. I miss her, you know? And sometimes it feels so bad all the time.” San blinks, and he can’t see anymore as tears slide off of his chin and into the chest of his sweater. “I...I felt like sliding off, you know? I don’t want to die. I didn’t want to. And it’s fucked up but...maybe I could have seen her again if I would have—”

Wooyoung cuts him off, hugging him tightly and letting him forget about finishing. San cries against him, trying to breathe and it’s hard and Wooyoung smelled like salt and forgiveness as he presses closer to him. 

Even in the dark, San felt so vulnerable.

Wooyoung feels his heart break for the second time when he feels San hide again, crying silently into his hands against his chest. He swallows, kissing his hair again and trying to find his thoughts in how the rain was picking up against San’s window, in what little moonlight was peeking through the clouds, ashy and invasive and almost suffocating the two of them.

He wanted to get out of here with him, to move them to his kitchen or the couch in his living room and let San leave his tears in his bedroom.

“I know it sucks, Moon. I’m not going to say I understand what you’re feeling...” Wooyoung’s being honest and San really appreciates him, because he knew how much he didn’t know and how much he’s never had to deal with something like this, but he was trying and San doesn’t know how to thank him, “...but I get it. It’s okay to miss her. It’s okay to cry. And you probably won’t ever stop crying. But I’ll always be here to listen to you. Even when you feel like you need to cry, or scream at the top of your lungs at someone, I’ll be here. We’ll be okay. We always are in the end, right?”

Wooyoung rests his cheek against the top of San’s head, his grip around him not letting up and San’s at home again, feeling worn out and empty, like he really didn’t have anything in him. But he couldn’t stop crying and he was hurting in almost too many ways today. 

He shakes his head, facing away from the window and trying to block out just how sad the world had been, too. 

“I feel so guilty, Woo.” His voice sounds like white lace as it pulls across his raw skin and runs over his hair in the darkness of his room, holding more weight than what he intended when he says it out loud to him.

Guilt. It felt like a plague.

Wooyoung runs another hand over San’s hair, taking in how warm he was and how much he wanted to love him, between when he was beaming and tugging him down empty streets with him at two in the morning or shutting down and strengthening the storms surrounding Lake Victoria. 

“For what, sweetheart?”

“I’m always crying over her.”

And he wouldn’t tell him that he was guilty and wanted to be alone for the most part, just to not burden him, for wanting to shut him out until he forgot about his mother because he knew just how infectious  _ feeling _ could be. 

He would never forget about her, and he thinks that’s what’s making everything worse.

Wooyoung swallows, pulling back from San and bringing a hand up to his face, wiping the tears from his cheek with the pad of his thumb in silence, and it was so soothing in a way that San almost has the need to cry again. He’s looking at him as if this was a regular night with him, not burning sympathies and pity into him like he would have expected and it felt good to feel normal, even for a moment.

San leans his face into Wooyoung’s hand, and his eyelashes are clumping together and tears fall over Wooyoung’s skin, sharing with him his wooden paradise, set ablaze and burning to the ground, but he knew Wooyoung would be there to help him build it back up and he thinks that’s why he was beginning to feel guilty again.

“I hope you understand that I’m going to be here for you. For as long as you want me to be.”

“I know.” He whispers again, and Wooyoung leans forward and presses his forehead against San’s, something he does a lot and it makes the world stop and his words heavier as they double and settle in his heart, helps San slow down and focus on something else for the moment.

In most cases, it had always been Wooyoung.

“I understand. Don’t feel guilty. I’m with you.”

And San thinks that he should tell Wooyoung something that he’d been thinking about for almost too long now, feels it bubbling up in his mouth and he wants to tell him, but he’s scared.

Wooyoung would never give him up, and they both knew that.

Even when San was mean, even when San was crying and bleeding his storms into Wooyoung’s sunny skies. Even when San tried to keep rebuilding his walls back up, stuff the cracks and fill the holes with glue and tape and everything he could get his hands on to block him out, Wooyoung would always break them down, with his crumbling-wall laugh and his crumbling-wall way of loving him so much that it felt like he was insufferable sometimes. He didn’t really know what was true, if he was lying to himself or if his heart made inconsistencies with him recently. And as they stay in his bed together, when the sky finally clears up and floods sunlight over the two of them, San realizes.

He loved Wooyoung a lot. 

He just didn’t know if he was capable of keeping up with it.


	20. victories and how san almost lost his

It’s been a couple of days since San has spoken to Wooyoung.

He’s been taking the time to hang out at the cliff more, alone with his thoughts and his heart and himself. It’s been a couple of days since San’s really thought about what he wanted. It’s been a couple of days since San has been drowning in his guilty waters whenever Wooyoung popped up in his head when he didn’t expect it, ruining his appetite and keeping him up until the early morning blushed over the city. 

He’s been thinking about Wooyoung a lot. He’s been thinking about him, and where he fit into him and how much he’s molded him from how he was back in September. He’s been thinking about what he gives back to Wooyoung, and after coming up short time and time again, he’s been thinking about breaking from him. 

He felt like a parasite almost, and he knew it was wrong of him, but the more Wooyoung built his home in his heart and flew kites of hope in his head, the worse he felt. He didn’t know what to do anymore. It’s been months, and he knew he shouldn’t be thinking like this but he _was_ and he couldn’t shake the shade of doing it for the better. 

It would be better for Wooyoung.

And as his eyes are burning again, crying more times this week than he’s ever had the misfortune of doing, watching the sunk sink below the offing of where the sky meets the waves below him, letting his legs press against the rocky cliffs as he sits farther away from the edge and finds peace in the steel cells of his prison, Wooyoung finds him out here on a Thursday evening.

“Tell me what’s wrong.” Is all he says.

And San feels a bit of resentment at him for always knowing. He always _knew,_ and he thinks that’s what’s going to make this so hard. Because he knew that Wooyoung would _know_ this wasn’t what he really wanted and he would _know_ that San was too in love with him to let him go this easy. He’s been practicing in his head for how this wanted to go, and as he’s deteriorating in Wooyoung’s pretty brown eyes, dissolving in the acid of his light touches over his cheeks to get rid of his tears, his plans were already not going how he wanted.

Nothing ever really went how he wanted.

“I…” San sighs through his nose, and he shuts his eyes for a moment and tries to find his thoughts again, trying not to hang on to the picture of Wooyoung looking at him, sitting so close in front of him and _waiting._

There were traffic cones and red stoplights on his bustling streets, obstacles in the form of Wooyoung’s voice or the way he liked to wear his silver rings on his fingers. They were impossible to get through. 

He didn’t expect it to be this hard.

“I don’t think I can see you anymore, Woo.” San’s voice has been run over more times than he needed, his head spiraling and his heart was burning out as he watches Wooyoung’s eyebrows come together, and it’s the look in his eyes that reminded San of bullet holes that makes him want to cry again.

Wooyoung sits, and he closes his mouth and tries to breathe through his heavy chest, crushing and suffocating and he really didn’t know what was going on, but it made him feel sick and he starts to wonder what he’s done to make San upset with him. 

It had to be something he’s done, right?

“...What?” 

San swallows, and chews on his bottom lip, pressing his teeth a little harder and it hurts but he thinks he deserves it for being so comfortable with saying something like that to Wooyoung. He deserved to feel uncomfortable for being the reason behind Wooyoung trying not to frown on top of their favorite place to hang out together. 

San’s favorite place to think. Too much of it isn’t such a good thing, huh?

“I’m just...not used...not made….to be loved this much. By someone like you, especially.” He looks at Wooyoung, and his eyes are glassy and his normal spark was dimmer than usual, and it made things so much worse when he knew he was the cause.

Everything hurts so much worse as he’s looking over Wooyoung trying not to get upset at him. And San doesn’t know what he’s thinking, how to even express what he’s thinking, but he keeps going and hopes that he’ll understand what he’s saying. 

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to do it. I can’t be with you, Woo. I can’t give you back what you’re giving me. I feel like...my heart...” San is crying, facing the floor and feeling his face soak in tears, salty and stale and he feels like such an idiot in front of him. Every word felt like silver knives into his skin, like regret and heartbreak and San felt like a criminal. “It doesn’t feel good, you know? I can’t repay you at all. I don’t know how-”

Wooyoung tugs on San’s shirt, and he feels like he’s made of jelly, his legs wobbly and his heart about to turn to mush in his chest, and he’s pressed against Wooyoung’s chest and he smells his cologne and as he’s permeating every ounce of his being right now, he realizes how much he needed Wooyoung to be there.

His company, his smiles, his voice, everything.

San thinks he might be worse off than he thought, to try and get rid of Wooyoung so quickly.

Wooyoung has his arms around San, his chin pressed against the top of his head as he hides him away from the world, blocking her out again and this time, San doesn’t feel bad for her. His fingers find their way into San’s hair, and he erupts in butterflies again once Wooyoung presses his lips to the top of his head, just lingering in a way that makes him rethink this entire week in just a few seconds.

“Is that what this is about, San? Repaying me?”

San shuts his eyes as Wooyoung’s voice is destroyed, as if he was made of porcelain and San had been careless enough to drop him, and he sees that Wooyoung figured out what San was trying to tell him and it was here that Wooyoung wanted to cry for the first time in years.

San doesn’t respond.

“Fucking hell, San.”

Wooyoung takes a breath, and it’s shaky, like how the wind rattles windows on a stormy evening in July, and San feels himself being torn. He’s pulling a piece of himself to just let go of Wooyoung, so he wouldn’t have to deal with him and his stupid mom and how many friends he didn’t have, and he feels Wooyoung tugging on the other end, trying to pull him into the utopia that he’s created for him, and there’s a tear in his heart that’s getting bigger the more they struggled for each other.

Struggling for each other - it’s all they knew how to do exactly right.

“When will you let me love you?”

Wooyoung feels San shrink, hiding his face into his hands as he cries against Wooyoung’s chest for the millionth time this week, a simple question, so thin, yet holding the heaviest of weight San had ever felt, and he clutches onto Wooyoung’s shirt, and he could barely breathe because his nose was so clogged. He felt sick as he was nearly choking on his tears, and Wooyoung tightens his grip on San, like if he lacked he would lose him for good.

He almost did.

He could barely hear him at first, but his voice became clearer, as if he’d been drowning in him and he was finally brave enough to come to the surface of his rough waters and busy tides and face exactly what Wooyoung had meant to him.

“I love you.” It’s a whisper, and San can’t tell if it’s because he was too busy hearing himself screaming or because Wooyoung was hurting too bad to really try. “I mean it. I’m in love with you.”

He repeats it again, and San could tell he was serious, that he meant it. He wasn’t scared of hearing it, like he thought he would be. He had been so terrified of Wooyoung and everything he’d been doing to him, everything he’d been making him feel and saying to him, listening to the saccharine drip of his tongue when he spoke to him and gazing at the horizons that had breached a home in his eyes, scared of what he’s so effortlessly been letting San’s see without hesitation. He had been so distracted by being afraid of Wooyoung that he hadn’t seen his white flags and his vulnerability when it came to something like this.

How vulnerable Wooyoung was to love someone like San.

San wipes his eyes in the collar of his sweater, gripping it so tight that the soft fabric had turned into steel wool in his sensitive palms, and he leans back from Wooyoung for just a second, needing to tell him.

The bits of remaining sunlight had cascaded down his face, engulfing him in an ethereal magic that he really should be used to by now, yet had surprised him every time he saw him. His eyes were glazed over, puffy with the strain of fighting tears and painted a soft pink, his cheeks dusted peach and his black hair was tousled. He looked a mess. 

San was guilty.

Wooyoung stares right back at him, piercing, and his gaze lets San know so much in such a short period of time. San feels it - a civil twilight bleed that starts in his heart, then seeps into his blood and carries into his head, astronomical and heavy, as he studies Wooyoung and all of his stars and skies. He was ignited, butterflies fluttering against his ribcage and he thinks that maybe he might have loved Jung Wooyoung a little too much. 

He leans up, kisses him in the moon’s lamp as if he would burn away in the stars if he didn’t, letting go of his sweater and pressing his hand to his cheeks instead. And as Wooyoung leans into him, kissing him as if San was salvation and holding onto him like he was physical innocence, he wanted to restart. He feels as though if he could give anything to rewind tonight and just discard his thoughts for now, he would. 

He thinks that he loved Wooyoung way more than his heart could really handle and he was upset that it took him almost letting him go to see it.

He was mad.

But Wooyoung couldn’t stop being in love with him. He was in love with everything San was, everything he had yet to be and everything he wasn’t. It was so strange, to love someone as empty, yet so full, and Wooyoung thinks he’s almost too lucky to have his enigma, waiting to be explored and discovered, right here in front of him, as the night slowed and he cried against his mouth.

Wooyoung kisses him again, and again, until he could barely breathe and tasted salt, and he pulls away slightly, enough for their noses to brush against each other and it was more than enough to tell him that San was still here, really here, with him at their regular cliff on a regular Saturday night. 

He was _here_.

San shakes his head softly, and Wooyoung would practically feel him frowning and clenching his teeth and he let his tears fall onto his jeans. San was almost embarrassed, enough because he was crying in front of Wooyoung and he felt so vulnerable, as if he’d split his heart open and gave it to Wooyoung for him to study all of his flaws and hiccups under a microscope. And it felt like he did, and in that, finding his mistakes and damages, he always had bandages for him. 

He was always healing because of him.

“I’m sorry, Woo. I’m sorry-” 

He was all San wanted. He felt so terrible.

“We’ll always make a good team, a-alright? Don’t leave me. It’s not your fault. It’s never gonna be your fault, okay?”

Wooyoung leans back, but San kept his head down and he could see the sickening glisten of the sunlight on tears so crystalline as they landed on his hands, taking up the pretty ochres of the sky, and for a moment, they remind him of diamonds, how precious and priceless it was for San to let himself cry. 

San was _priceless_.

“I didn’t want to. Not really. I’m not good for you.”

Wooyoung feels his nose prickle as his heart is heavy in his chest and the lump in his throat just wouldn’t go down. “You’re perfect for me, San. I’ll try harder to help you believe that.”

San bites his bottom lip, raw and red and the splits were kind of stinging from his tears as he really, really tries not to spill again. Wooyoung trying harder for him? 

He would never get it. 

“I’m sorry.” Is all he says, and he sniffles once to try and reduce the pressures he felt everywhere, hiding his face in the crook of Wooyoung’s neck, and he breathes once, then twice, focusing on Wooyoung’s heartbeat and basking in the honeyed light that the dying sun offered them.

He was okay. They would be alright.

And when the world finally fell silent, when he was done shouting at his heart and when he was done tearing himself in half, he tells him, and Wooyoung almost wants to cry again because this was almost too much and he doesn’t know if it was because it was San or because it was himself.

“I love you, too.” San rests his head in the crook of his neck as Wooyoung squeezes him close, swaying them back and forth a little and San feels at ease, like rocking in hammocks in the heart of spring. “So, so much.”

Wooyoung shuts his eyes, presses his mouth to San’s soft hair and thinks of green apples as he’s surged with an inexplicable relief that takes up his entire being.

And as Wooyoung is holding him, in times like this, San sometimes wished that he couldn’t feel at all.

But then he remembers, if he didn’t, that he would have missed out on so much with Wooyoung. He would have missed out on the adrenaline rushes that flow through him when he takes him on rides with the windows down, he would miss out on the longing for him when he was alone in his room, he would miss out on the scares of almost getting run over by a car at three in the morning or soaring into the sky as they sat on the swings together. They were always like that; afraid of nothing, yet terrified of everything, and he would have missed out on so much if he didn’t get to feel.

And being here with him, while the moon tells them to be quiet and calm tonight, while the stars watch over them with anticipating eyes as San thinks, as they shut themselves out of each other within one another, San thinks that it’s so lovely just to feel.

Jung Wooyoung was so, so lovely to _feel_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was so dramatic for literally no reason im so sorry omg


	21. summer vacation and how much san believed in him

The end of summer meant two things to San.

One, that he would spend the entirety of the rest of July worrying about college, enrolling in classes and stressing about the zeroes in costs for tuition.

And two, that he could spend more time wondering about the next summery thing Wooyoung could be found in once the heat settled down. It was 3pm in a Monday when Wooyoung was blue raspberry slushies that the 24-hour convenience store sold at noon, a Sunday when he was the hot sand beneath his feet when they went to the beach, this afternoon when he found him in the way the sun warmed him perfectly after he woke up and stood at his window to watch the world wake up, or in the night sky when the world slept, and he stayed up with him once the moon gave them permission to. He was everything that filtered happiness through San’s stresses and worries (and he found himself at the convenience store with him more often than not these days).

Summer meant only two things to San, and exactly everything to Wooyoung.

It’s two in the morning when San comes to Mingi’s house.

He was supposed to be there an hour ago, when they made a spontaneous decision to meet at Mingi’s and sleep there. There was no reasoning behind it, Hongjoong insisting that it would _bring them together without much effort,_ as if they needed it. San has noticed that they do a lot of things for no reason, but he thinks that’s what adds to their charm.

His group of stupid, lovely friends.

He’d told Wooyoung he wanted to walk there (more like a debate that ended in Wooyoung sending a _ >:| _in response, but San appreciated how easy it was for him to let stuff go), since Mingi’s house wasn’t as far as Yunho’s and was fairly close to them, anyway. He stopped at the nearest flower shop on the way there, trying not to stop at every pot and bouquet filled with tulips or white roses or budding freesias and thanking the cashier quietly, both for the seeds he bought and for not asking questions about why a nineteen year old boy is roaming freely into a flower shop at two in the morning.

San didn’t understand, either. But he was thankful.

And on the way there, he’d gotten nervous more times than he should’ve. There’s a lump in his throat when he thinks about it, thinks about his friends and his family and exactly why he picked these flowers out, running his fingers over the smooth packaging as the amber street lamps above him encouraged him to walk just a little bit faster. He wants to tell everyone he sees when they wake up today, that he's got a package of flower seeds that mean the world to him and he wants to tell everyone why.

He would never, but that doesn’t mean the want went away. 

When Mingi opens the door for him this morning, the entire house is shaded in darkness, save for the television in the living room casting flickered shadows of messy hair and glasses on the bridges of noses on the wall to his left. Mingi’s sweater is too big, as always, and he’s got on fuzzy socks that clip his legs in a way that made him seem small.

He was so tall all the time. 

“Hi,” Mingi says, and upon seeing his exhaustion quickly dissipate into genuine happiness that he - an hour late and misty from walking alone in the dark this morning - was stood at his doorstep with a package of _flower seeds_ in his hand made him smile.

“Sannie? Is that San?” Yeosang’s voice is undeniable from the living room, and San pictures him lying against Seonghwa or holding up a sleepy Wooyoung as they watch their cartoons. 

Maybe he cooked for them. Maybe he cleaned up after them and denied help when they offered.

“Yeah. He came!” Mingi tells him, and he steps back with a smile, rubbing his eyes with his sweater sleeve and letting San in. 

It was cold. As always.

“Woo’s changing his clothes upstairs.”

San nods in a way that if Mingi had blinked, he would have missed it, and he immediately goes across the hall to the sliding glass door, waving shyly at the group as they pooled on Mingi’s couches and settled on the floor while watching whatever they’d been watching on his television. San knows it’s a little rude to just come in and not even explain himself, but he needed to do this before he forgot. The air is _so_ cold in Mingi’s house, Jongho and Hongjoong under the big blanket Mingi left out here sometimes as they craned their neck to look at him, but it was familiar in a way that made him feel warm.

And he doesn’t know if the group is quiet because he had been, or if they think something is wrong with him in the way that he’s unlocking the sliding glass door without even taking off his shoes.

“San?” San makes eye contact with Jongho for a moment, sending his heart into the stars at his best friend, someone who’s picked his locks and solved his head to make him look forward to going to school now, before he looks down at the handle to open the door. 

He needed to do this, now.

Mingi shut the front door, watching him, and he was a bit confused but had the slightest idea of what he’d been doing, and he followed him into the backyard, the cold grass prickling under his feet once San got the sliding door open.

“You picked a flower?” Mingi asks, as if this was a normal thing for San to just come into his house in the early morning and plant seeds in the garden he has in the backyard. 

The night seeps into his skin again, filling him with the familiar feeling of wanting to do something, _anything_ while he still had the chance, while he was still in the city. Being around his friends felt like opportunity, in the way that there were no bounds to what they felt like doing.

Coming here as the hour lazed into three in the morning was undeniably one of them.

“Yeah. That’s why I was so late. I got there before they closed. I researched it.” San tells him, holding the package in his hand and letting Mingi follow him to the patch of flowers that seemed so much bigger than when he last saw them as he was nearing the patch.

And even at night, while everything was shadowed and nearly invisible cloaked in the darkest sapphire, they looked beautiful. The flowers looked so beautiful tonight. 

“Well, let me get you a shovel. So you don’t dirty your-”

San starts digging in the dirt by the time Mingi registers, his brain kind of asleep as he blinks, and he’s staring at San pushing his hands into the middle of the patch and making a small hole for the flower with his fingers. 

“Okay. I’ll get you some water, instead.” 

And San can’t see it, but he imagines Mingi with his smile of cherry blossoms, loving and pink and reminding him of better days and better lives, running back inside of his house as his feet press against the grass.

“Mingi? What are you guys doing?” Yunho asks, the group not leaving their spots on the couch as they watch Mingi go into the kitchen, kind of instilled with an idea that San was sleepwalking or they’d seen a ghost or some far-out idea that they’d only thought about past midnight. They were sleepy. Mingi was, too, but he knew he needed to do this.

He knew _San_ needed to do this.

“San found his flower!” Mingi tells them, and Yunho gasps lightly while Yeosang and Hongjoong look at him from where they were on the couch.

“Dude, let’s go!” Yunho springs up from the couch and says it to no one in particular, and as Mingi’s filling up the water pail and watching the few bits of dirt it picked up on the bottom flow into his sink drain, they file out into the backyard, a sudden sense of energy to go see what kind of flower San was going to plant.

All this, over a flower. Mingi smiles.

He meets them outside, the pail kind of watering a trail in the grass as he hears it slosh everywhere, seeing them crowded around San in the middle of the garden. Their smiles were so bright, enough to make Mingi feel more than wide awake as he listens to Hongjoong’s giggle or watches Jongho throw his head back in one of his glass chandelier laughs and looks at San’s shy smile of gemstones as he’s pushing the soft dirt back over the hole he made. 

“Where the hell is Wooyoung?” Hongjoong asks, his light eyebrows coming together as he looks at Mingi as if he had all the answers to all of the questions ever asked. “He’s gotta be here, too.”

“I don’t know, he’s changing his clothes!” Mingi tells him again, and Jongho rolls his eyes.

“Why is he taking so long?”

_“I don’t know!”_

“San, tell us about the flower!” Yunho urges, and his eyes are crescents and holding so much excitement for him, it was hard to believe that it was two in the morning and the world was still asleep behind them.

San swallows, blinking and staring at the dirt.

“I looked it up...” He starts, watching Mingi tilt the water pail and letting it flood the patch he just covered. “It’s a hyacinth. It means family.” 

Family. That word was so strange to say. He hasn't really said it out loud in a while, only because he felt like he would speak of ghosts and there was nothing for the word to hold on to. It would just be floating through the sky, invisible and roaming and lost and for some reason, San felt like saying the word out loud would speak too much truth back to him that he felt like he never had one, not really. 

But things change. It was nearly unacceptable of him to think like that, considering he had two, maybe even three or four when he thinks about the cliff or what he learns at school. They were ties, like balloon strings around his heart, and as they let him float past the universe’s boundaries, he decided he wouldn’t try to touch the ground anymore.

Family, family, family. How wonderful of them to keep him floating.

“Since my mom died, and my dad is never around, I always felt like…I don’t know. Just like…” He shrugs, hating the vulnerable feeling that was slowly creeping up his spine, growing into his heart and constricting his lungs, but he knew he probably would regret it if he held back. He loved to hate the feeling of telling people how he truly felt, but lately, with the memories of Wooyoung’s coaxing eyes and his friends’ encouraging grins as they stand beside him and listen, he feels that it was easier to just do it.

He feels that it was just easier to love.

“I felt like I wasn’t complete. My family has been fucked up since then. But…” And San feels an old sadness in his chest that reminded him of driftwood in the way that it was _there_ , and nobody could move it because it was in the middle of the sea and it was too dangerous to venture that far out, but he doesn’t cry again, and instead, he smiles when Yunho grins at him as their eyes meet, and when Jongho tilts his head in sentiment at him. 

“I met Wooyoung, and then I met you guys. You guys mean more to me than you could ever imagine.” San looks back up at Yunho, then to Hongjoong and Mingi and Seonghwa and Yeosang and Jongho and all of his heart as they stand out in the middle of the night in their pajamas and messy hair and starry eyes. “Even if, one day, we have to split, I’ll never forget how much love you’ve shown me. A family doesn’t have to have parents or stick around forever, you know? What matters is that…” San takes a breath, and it’s here when he believes in himself for once. “What matters is that I love you guys now, and I’ll love you guys tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. And I hated flowers because they reminded me of my mom and the last time I ever got to see her. So this garden means a lot.”

San shakes his head once, staring into the empty patch of grass and imagining just how beautiful his flower would be once it bloomed. He thinks, his own words weighing down his chest as they make a home in his heart and painted fairytales in his head, that there was a lot of love in certain things, but he just had to be willing to look for it. 

“I hope that makes sense.” Is all he says.

The air holds their silences as San just stares at the patch of dirt, almost wishing that he’d brought the full bloomed flower to join the others. But he knew it had to grow, just like everyone and everything else. 

He didn’t really know. But he knew he had to be patient, just as they were patient with him and all of his worries and thoughts that carried away sometimes, that ran through rose bushes and over broken glass and they damaged him the more he tried to keep up. 

Even when San was beaten, either by himself or the boy in his fifth period, they were always _there,_ with their colors to paint over his bruises.

There’s a light weight on his back that brings him back to earth from his head’s spaces, hugging him tightly and not saying anything. He glances as best as he could at him, sees Yeosang burying his face in his neck as he hugs over his shoulders. He feels him smile wide at him against his skin, and San giggles and leans his face on Yeosang’s hair. Mingi falls to his knees and hugs him from the other side, while Yunho leans on them and engulfs all three of them from the back. Hongjoong giggles, and he and Jongho are the next to push onto the rest of them, hugging San from the front. Seonghwa meets them, his arms around them, resting his cheek on San’s hair, warm in the summer’s moon. It reminded him of the park, and how they all did this to him when he told them about his family.

And here he was, telling them about themselves, and they were doing the exact same thing.

It was here when San realized just how small the world could be as long as they were in it, taking it over and making a journey for the universe and all of its stars and planets and empty spaces. They could do a lot together, and he believed in them more than ever.

“Whoa, what did I miss?” Wooyoung’s voice takes him out of his head, and his heart immediately butterflies when he stands in front of them, tilting his head a bit to look at San underneath all of his giggling friends, drowning in a red hoodie and pajama pants that were too long for him.

“About time!” Yeosang groans. “You missed everything.”

The boys let go of San to look up at Wooyoung, and San shakes his head once as he looks at his flower, right in the middle and surrounded by all of his friends. He was surrounded in love, thought, strength, relationships, perfection. And when he blooms, he would be right at home, where he belonged. 

He couldn’t ask for more.

“Nothing. I just…” San looks up at Wooyoung, feels himself falling all over again, as if it hasn’t been almost a year since he first met him. 

The clouds and the horizons in his chest that he had for him on that cliff had come back to him, the restart that Wooyoung had on his heart was coming back to him, and as he thinks of the flower he had planted for not only himself, but him, and he wants to cry again.

He seemed to want to cry all the time.

“I love you.”

Wooyoung smiles, and San sees the apples of his cheeks in the moonlight, radiating and such a perfect fit for the way things were looking outside, even if it was too dark to really see. He steps towards San, kneeling down right in front of him to meet his eyes. He reaches up to hold San’s face in his hand, stroking his thumb over his warmed skin and feeling his cheeks rise as he smiles at him. 

San feels of honey.

“I love you, too, Moon. I think your flower’s gonna look beautiful.”

He looks up at him, Wooyoung gives him the prettiest smile of blue raspberry slushies that he loved to see so much, and it was here when San knew that his flowers wouldn’t rot anymore. They were thriving, _he_ was thriving, and in the rosebushes he’d found himself trapped in, wilted and thorned at the stems, he found his hope. He thought it was perfect.

Perfect on the way Wooyoung loved him, perfect in the way he loved his friends, and even now, as he was looking at the garden with them, he longed for the next time he could see his beautiful friends in all of their beautiful petals and how they took on the brightest of the sun, complemented the world with their honeyed smiles and hearts of gold.

Wooyoung let him believe. It was hard to, especially when San hasn’t remotely thought of it since he was six. It was tainted, held venom in the way it blackened his heart when it bit him that there was no _believing_ in anything. And he wanted to believe in anyone, be like everyone else around him who had wishes and dreams of what the world could be if they just believed. If the world was cruel enough to take his mom, there couldn’t have been. 

That’s just how it was.

But Wooyoung painted beliefs in the way he smiled at him, as if he was the only person in the world allowed to look at something so beautiful, in the way his eyes glinted over the smallest things that San wouldn’t bat an eyelash at, in the way he held his fingers on their way home after school, in the way he gave him his heart to keep and trusted that he would keep it safe. Like fables, San dreamed of whims and how different the world really was when he let himself _believe._

Wooyoung was magic like that.

And as he's listening to his friends laugh and basking in the way Wooyoung was kissing him under the eve of July, he could never ask for prettier flowers. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> andddd that's it!!
> 
> i hope that the ending wasn't too rushed or if there was anything in it that didn't make sense?? i tried to a lot of comparisons and ik sometimes they dont make sense but thats just how i was feeling okay im sORRY
> 
> thank you for everything!! please, if there's anything that sounded weird, was poorly written, i could work on, etc. let me know and i'll fix it! i hope u liked this omg and thank you for sticking with it! i know it's a super long read (77k+ like ???) but i hope it wasnt too tedious or anything like that and you enjoyed it.


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